2023 County Report for Isle of Man

Andree Dubbeldam

My first year as BSBI county recorder for the Isle of Man has been a comparatively quiet year on the botanical front, but still plenty to report.

The first update of ‘Plants of Conservation Concern Isle of Man’, first published in 2022 is underway. Four black-listed (VC extinct) species have been rediscovered and moved to red; Ranunculus sceleratus (celery leaved buttercup), Rosa arvensis (field rose), Rumex maritima (golden dock) and Vicea lutea (yellow vetch). The highlight of which was the re-recording of Vicea lutea after a 15 year gap. It is still found in exactly the same position on a nearly sheer sea cliff near Port St Mary as when it was first recorded in 1907.  Sheep had beaten us to the find, so the plants looked pretty ragged, but are like many annuals they will likely carry on until they get a window of opportunity to flower and set seed.

The Plants of Conservation Concern provides us with a challenging list of sites to update the status of our more critical species in 2024. We will be helped in this by the setting up of a local botanist’s Whatsapp group.

Finally the winter has been a good time to find new records of Ophrys apiflera (bee orchid) in mown and grazed grassland, with a good new site in a cattle-field in the southeast by Liz Charter, who was also responsible for re-finding two of the black-listed species. More bee orchids were found in mown grass around a limestone quarry office car-park in Ballasalla.