North Ebudes, v.c. 104

About 50 new hectad records were made in VC104 in the second half of 2022 bringing the year’s total to over 140. Over 6,600 2022 records have been transferred to the DDb including over 20 new vice-county records for the year.

Skye Botany Group’s project with the Darwin Tree of Life project resulted in more new sites for P. x mantoniae (P. interjectum x vulgare). A specimen of Ophioglossum azoricum (Small Adder’s-tongue) from Raasay was taken for whole genome analysis.

SBG members were further involved in BSBI’s SHARP Project and had success in the second half of the year with e.g. Euphrasia heslop-harrisonii (an Eyebright) at Broadford, Atriplex praecox (Early Orache) from the Braes area and Zostera marina (Eelgrass) at Coral Beach.  Some plants on the SHARPP list for VC104 are taxa whose nomenclature is in a state of flux e.g. Cochlearia officinalis subsp. scotica and Rhinanthus minor subsp. borealis, or whose actual taxonomic status is in question, e.g. Euphrasia arctica x marshallii. Some of these plants have been re-found in/near their previous locations but they are no longer what we thought they were, so whether we can say they have been re-found (even though they may have been), is debatable!

Members of SBG completed the survey of Broadford for the Urban Flora of Scotland project. Surveys covered six monads and resulted in over 900 records.Eight Hieracium (Hawkweed) specimens were sent for expert determination. All bar two were the relatively common H. anglicum (English Hawkweed), H. shoolbredii (Shoolbred’s Hawkweed) and H. triviale (Common Hawkweed). The remaining two were initially determined as H. langwellense (Langwell Hawkweed) and H. orcadense (Orkney Hawkweed), both of which would have been valuable records. However, I made the mistake of querying one of them and now they have both been reduced to INDET.

This year’s additions to VC104:

Allium moly	Yellow Garlic
Anchusa azurea	Garden Anchusa
Astilbe rivularis*	River Astilbe
Brassica oleracea cv.	Cabbage cultivar
Carex riparia	Greater Pond-sedge
Crocus tommasinianus	Early Crocus
Echinops bannaticus	Blue Globe-thistle
Euphrasia arctica x heslop-harrisonii	An Eyebright hybrid
Filipendula camtschatica	Giant Meadowsweet
Fritillaria meleagris	Fritillary
Helianthus annuus	Sunflower
Hyacinthus orientalis	Hyacinth
Levisticum officinale	Lovage
Libertia formosa	Chilean-iris
Malus sylvestris s.s.	Crab Apple
Persicaria nepalensis	Nepal Persicaria
Phedimus kamtschaticus	Kamchatka Stonecrop
Pilosella caespitosa	Yellow Fox-and-cubs
Poterium sanguisorba subsp. balearicum	Fodder Burnet
Sorbaria kirilowii	Chinese Sorbaria
Taraxacum pseudohamatum	A Dandelion

*Astilbe rivularis Buch.-Ham. Ex D.Don (not Astilbe rivularis auct. non Buch.-Ham. Ex D.Don = A. chinensis (Maxim.) Franch. & Sav.). First record for the British Isles.

Not seen since before 2000:

Taxon	Vernacular	Year of last record
Euphrasia arctica x marshallii	An Eyebright hybrid	1979
Erysimum cheiri	Wallflower	1980
Polypodium x mantoniae	Manton's Polypody	1983
Symphytum officinale*	Common Comfrey	1984
Saxifraga umbrosa**	Pyrenean Saxifrage	1987-1999

*Many earlier records for Symphytum officinale may be errors for S. x uplandicum (Russian Comfrey).

**The only previous record for Saxifraga umbrosa in VC104 is from Portree and is anonymous and undated. It is very likely an error for Saxifraga x urbium (Londonpride) which is known from several sites in Portree. Therefore, this is very probably also a first vice-county record.

Stephen J Bungard

January 2023