2023 County Report for Peeblesshire
Luke Gaskell
This year 2935 records were added to the DDB from 22 days recording.
The upland landscapes of South Scotland are rapidly changing. Increased farming activity, sport shooting, wind farms and of course afforestation are all putting pressure on natural habitats so it’s always a pleasure to come across less “managed” places. For example recording up the Scape Burn there were great beds of Arctostaphylos uva-ursi , Bearberry, a rare plant here growing across dry scree along with Sedum villosum, Hairy Stonecrop and Myosotis stolonifera, Pale Forget-me-not in nearby flushes. However, Sitka Spruce seedlings were colonising from nearby forestry on one side while muirburn for grouse shooting had impoverished the vegetation on the other side.
Peeblesshire has relatively little arable so it was nice to come across some fields of under-sown barley near Walkerburn which had not been sprayed. The arable plants included Amsinckia micrantha, Common Fiddleneck, a second VC record Centaurea cyanus, Cornflower, Euphorbia helioscopia, Sun Spurge, Galeopsis speciosa, Large-flowered Hemp-nettle Lycopsis arvensis, Bugloss and Viola × contempta, ( V. tricolor × V. arvensis) also a second VC record.
I have continued recording nearer home in Roxburghshire concentrating on villages and have been involved in surveys for the Tweed Meadows restoration project.
Photos.
Viola × contempta , VC78 Walkerburn. 2nd VC record.
Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus Yellow Day-Lily. St Boswells, VC80 2nd VC record
Tulipa sylvestris Wild Tulip. Tweed by Newstead , VC80.
