2020 County Report for North Essex

Ken Adams

This report covers Vc18 as well as Vc19.  Having had covid pneumonia in late January the year got off to a late start, but we managed to get Essex Botany 10 and 11 out during the year, the former having an illustrated key to nine Sandmat Euphorbias either already in or likely to turn up shortly in Britain from France, and an analysis of the Crack and White Willows found in lowland Britain, while the latter highlighted the monad spread of 14 aliens across Essex over the last 40 years. Copies  available from ken.adams@virgin.net. Unable to do much botany myself as my wife has been ill,  Enid Barrie and I  concentrated on correcting the DDb and inputting the backlog of our Hieracium herbarium records, leaving our Chelmsford, Tendring and Colchester Groups to sally forth in the field on their own in small groups during lockdown, sending  samples of anything critical in the post, - and they managed to generate around 5,400 new records. This compares with around 20,300 records in 2019. 2020 proved a further successful year for our two widely dispersed Lizard Orchid plants in Vc19 and a magnificent new plant occurred as a first for Vc18 as well as a small colony of Epipactis palustris  now increased to 200 plants with some Oak-leaved Goosfoot. A critical look at  our Sallows during the year generated two records of the siberian Salix gmelinii for Vc18 and a record of the American Salix prolixa Anderson in Epping Forest -  kindly determined  by Irina Belyaeva.