2023 County Report for South Lincolnshire

Sarah Lambert and Malcolm Pool

Malcolm Pool, Richard O’Connor and others have continued visiting under-recorded monads, while Neil Harris has been studying with the sub-species of Dryopteris affinis (Scaly Male-fern) in the vice-county. Uploading of records to the BSBI database has been limited by pressure of work and IT issues.

The South Lincolnshire Flora Group (SLFG) has continued to thrive. The Facebook group has 118 members and an average of 12 botanists attend field meetings. Seven SLFG meetings were held in 2023 (including two New Year Plant Hunts on 1st January in Stamford and 31st December in Lincoln). Three were held jointly with the Lincolnshire Naturalists’ Union (LNU) and involved collection of herbarium specimens for the LoveLincsPlants legacy project. All  included informal training and it has been good to see more young botanists attending.

Sites visited in 2023 were:

  • Castle Bytham NR in April, where we found Anacamptis morio (Green-winged Orchid) new to the reserve.
  • Twyford Wood in May, where we found a surprising record of Fragaria ananassa ‘Pink Panda’ (Garden Strawberry).
  • Doddington Hall in late July, a very well attended joint meeting with the LNU, where we updated records for many acid-loving plant species rare in VC53.
  • Boothby Wildland in August, where we discovered a new population of Epipactis purpurata (Violet Helleborine) at only its second site in VC53.
  • Moulton Marsh NR, which had a good range of saltmarsh and grassland species, including several bushes of Suaeda vera (Shrubby Sea-blite) at one of its most inland sites in GB.

Taraxacum berthae (Bertha's Dandelion)

A thriving population found in Jackson’s Meadow NR, an unimproved ridge-and-furrow in Castle Bytham, during a SLFG trip and confirmed by John Richards. This endemic species has distinctively spotted leaves and a predominantly western distribution. This is the first confirmed record for Lincolnshire.