2023 County Report for Fermanagh

Robert Northridge

 

Fermanagh is a well-surveyed county and so exciting new finds are very unusual!

Much of the 2023 field season was spent visiting sites where interesting species were already known to occur, so there are updated records for species such as Gentianella amarella and G. campestris, Dryas octopetala, Juniperus communis, Neotinea intacta, Pseudorchis albida, Pyrola secunda, Equisetum × trachyodon and E. pratense, and Saxifraga hypnoides.

I gave a talk at the Irish Autumn Conference on identifying horsetails (Equisetums) as over half the world’s horsetail species occur in Fermanagh, one reason for this probably being its damp climate!

An email from Tim Rich made me realise that all my Irish records for Luzula multiflora subsp multiflora on the DDb would be better reassigned to Luzula multiflora agg. since subsp multiflora may not occur in Ireland; subsp hibernica is probably widespread, especially in the west of the country.