2024 County Report for Leicestershire
Geoffrey Hall, Stephen Woodward and Russell Parry
To date we have added 27,898 records to the BSBI database and, since the Atlas 2020 fieldwork, we have raised the proportion of well-recorded tetrads from 53% (Dec 2019) to 88% (Dec 2024). Our helpful contact in Natural England facilitated visits to two SSSIs, while direct approaches to landowners secured access to ten further sites.
Reports on botany were written for the Loughborough Naturalists’ Club quarterly journal Heritage. We participated in the local Nature Recovery Strategy project, led by Leicestershire County Council, where our 2022 Rare Plant Register informed the species selected.
Russell finished surveying the 98 monads wholly or partly within the boundary of the City of Leicester. A BSBI local group for Leicester City was formed and met twice weekly to complete the task. The data has now been listed and compared with all previous records (since 1724) for the area. There were 58 first City records that include six natives, two casuals, 22 naturalised taxa and 25 survivors. We have also collaborated with the local Wildlife Trust and the City Council to hold field (pavement) meetings for local residents.
New populations of some arable weeds have been found: Cerastium pumilum and Sison segetum at Empingham, and Lysimachia foemina at Clipsham; Valerianella dentata was refound at Exton.
In July, we refound Orobanche lucorum in two new sites at Brooksby College near Melton, although it was not found at its original location.
A huge population of sown Oenanthe pimpinelloides was discovered well-established and spreading on private land near Osbaston, and another near Carlton. Two new populations of Bolboschoenus laticarpus were found in Ashby and in Rothley (introduced into a SUDS).
At Tickencote Marsh SSSI, five sedges (Carex disticha, C. flacca, C. nigra, C. panicea and C. spicata) were recorded that had previously not been seen at the site.
A single plant of Genista tinctoria was re-found in a species-rich marsh near Eastwell and Cerastium diffusum was found on a drive at Newtown Linford.
In Leicester City new populations of six species were found: Asplenium ceterach, Carex paniculata, C. punctata (in a car park), Leymus arenarius, Sisyrinchium bermudiana and Viola odorata var. imberbis.
