2020 County Report for South Kerry

Rory Hodd

There were not many opportunities to carry out recording in H1 in 2020, with the few records I collected being noted incidentally while working. It was pleasing to find Salix herbacea on steep ground just below the summit of Ireland’s highest peak, Carrauntuohil, having not been seen there since 1964 (although seen more recently elsewhere in the hectad). Other montane plants encountered in the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks included Carex bigelowii, Polystichum lonchitis and Saxifraga rosacea, as well as a new hectad record for Polystichum aculeatum in a montane crevice.  Fieldwork on the Dingle Peninsula turned up a new location for Pinguicula × scullyi on the Slieve Mish and updated records of a number of coastal species which are uncommon in Kerry, including Phleum arenarium, Cuscuta epithymum and Asperula cynanchica on the Maharees. John Diggin found a further population of Hammarbya paludosa close to where he first found it last year near Glenbeigh, doubling its number of known extant populations in Kerry. Edwina Cole and Simon Elliot recorded Humulus lupulus at Derrynane, the first record from H1 since before 1969, Marc Cruise provided a new hectad record of Erophila verna from Kenmare and Jessica Hamilton unearthed a new site for the overlooked gametophyte of Trichomanes speciosum from Lough Adoon on the Dingle Peninsula.