2024 County Report for Ayrshire

Dave Lang

In 2024, our small vc75 Ayrshire recording group decided to combine our usual programme of visits to seasonally relevant habitats with getting involved in the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS).

The NPMS involved our group being assigned an OS monad, which turned out to be at Blairquhan in South Ayrshire. This monad had to be visited three times over the year – once for initial reconnaissance, once for early season plant recording, and a final time for late season recording. Access to the area assigned to us was somewhat limited, as was the diversity of natural habitats available to monitor. However returning to watch one area develop botanically over the course of the season was an interesting new approach for our group.

Other highlights from the year included the first botanising trip to Black Craig Hill since the 1980s, where locally notable species Salix herbacea (dwarf willow), Carex bigelowii (stiff sedge), Cryptogramma crispa (parsley fern) and Diphasiastrum alpinum (Alpine clubmoss) were all refound.

During an outing to Cornish Hill in the southeast of our county in July, we found both Utricularia intermedia agg. (a type of bladderwort) and a confirmed example of Utricularia minor (lesser bladderwort) – both of which are scarce in Ayrshire. While our final outing of the year to Muirhead Reservoir in the north of the county resulted in a new site for the GB Vulnerable species Saxafraga hypnoides (mossy saxifrage).

Finally, we were seemingly quite rich in finds made outwith our formal programme of field events in 2024, with new locations for locally notable species Ervilia sylvatica (wood vetch), Ophrys apifera (bee orchid) and Crassula tillaea (mossy stonecrop) all made this year, along with a new site for the GB Near Threatened Neottia nidis-avis (bird’s-nest orchid).