2024 County Report for Herefordshire

Stuart Hedley

Herefordshire, VC36

A good year for record consolidation!  Almost at the end of the year and 11,000 records in for 2024 (should have been around 15,000 but the frustratingly slow iRecord import has taken the edge off the achievement).  Efforts in data entry showcased even better by the total number of new records (ie including those from earlier year-classes) at almost 32,000.

The VCR managed to devote a chunk of time to our most neglected Character Area, the North-west Herefordshire Hills by decamping there for ten days in June.  Highlights were colossal new sites for Ophioglossum and Moenchia erecta, and for Carex laevigata.   Elsewhere in the county new sites for some of our rarities Trifolium striatum, Cerastium semidecandrum, Ranunculus sardous and especially welcome Koeleria macrantha: with our predominantly acidic soils we are absolute edge of range for many south-eastern calcicoles and this one turned up at two sites within a week of one another after disappearing off the radar for perhaps sixty years.  As many will know, rare plants can be a bit like buses.  On edge-of-range, one of Britain’s most southerly Trollius sites was also refound.  New efforts with dandelions threw up three new species for the county, T. subhamatum, T. chlorofrugale, T. pietii-oosterveldii and, most exciting a second site for T. palustrisquameum.  Lemna valdiviana has also now arrived with us.  New native limes of both species continue to come to light and our efforts to keep the critically endangered Campanula patula on our list got a boost with fifty plugs gifted from the Millennium Seed Bank.

A Local Wildlife Sites project and our fabulous meadows group continued to safeguard valuable semi-natural grasslands through advocacy and, most important, direct action.  Monitoring has yielded two significant datasets demonstrating success in site restoration.