Small-flowered Catchfly, Silene gallica

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Small-flowered Catchfly, Silene gallica

Small-flowered Catchfly, Silene gallica

The Eastern Daily Press headline read “Endangered wildflower once again blooming near North Walsham“. The wildflower was Small-flowered Catchfly, Silene gallica, and it was thriving on two of Norfolk’s former railway lines now used as footpaths: on Weaver’s Way at Felmingham (between Aylsham and North Walsham) and on the Paston Way at Knapton (just outside North Walsham, to the north-east).

The newspaper article appeared in July 2017 and we kept a copy to remind us to look for the plant, but it wasn’t until early June 2019 that we finally made the trip.

We took the train from Norwich to North Walsham and then walked 2.5 miles south-west along Weaver’s Way to Felmingham. It is a lovely walk and the Dog Roses and Elder bushes were in flower. We stopped frequently on the way there and back to look at insects. We eventually reached Felmingham and found the Small-flowered Catchfly growing in a sandy cutting just west of the station, just as advertised.

The white-flowered form of Silene gallica (shown above) is pretty enough, but the Felmingham railway cutting was also home to plants with pink flowers, and plants with white petals blotched with red. The latter form is exquisite and known as Silene gallica var. quinquevulneraria. It is easy to see why it is sometimes cultivated in gardens.

Silene gallica var. quinquevulneraria

Silene gallica var. quinquevulneraria

Silene gallica - pink flowered form

Silene gallica – pink flowered form

Silene gallica is in the Pink family, the Caryophyllaceae, and is a relative of Spanish Catchfly and Spring Sandwort, which I have already written about on this blog.

It is a lovely annual plant of disturbed, sandy ground, with sticky stems and leaves and campion-like flowers with five petals. In Britain it flowers from June to October, but from March to May in southern Europe. It grows up to 30cm (12 inches) tall. It is a native of Eurasia and North Africa but in Britain the plant is classified as an Archaeophyte (non-native plants that became established before 1500). According to Plantlife, Silene gallica var quinquevulneraria is only known as a casual of garden origin.

Small-flowered Catchfly needs disturbed ground to grow, and at Felmingham rabbits are providing plenty of this by burrowing into the sandy banks of the old cutting. Bramble clearance by the North Walsham Conservation Group, a local group of The Conservation Volunteers (TCV), has helped as well.

Elsewhere, the plant is mainly found in arable fields on sandy or gravelly soils, and on old walls and waste ground. It also grows in open, drought-prone coastal grassland on banks and cliffs, and in sand dunes in the Channel Islands. Seeds mainly germinate in autumn, but the seedlings cannot tolerate temperatures below -10 °C.

The plant was once widespread in the UK and has been recorded in 283 ten km squares as far north as central Scotland. However, it is in steep decline in Britain and has been given the status of “Red – Endangered & Critically Endangered”. It is covered by the Norfolk Biodiversity Action Plan and the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (referenced by Plantlife in its species dossier). The information sheet for Plantlife’s “Back From The Brink” project gives useful habitat management advice.

As so often, modern agricultural practices are the main reason for its decline. Field margins are often removed and the land is sprayed with herbicides and fertilisers. If herbicides don’t kill off the plants, fertilisers enrich the soil and allow coarser plants to outcompete the delicate catchfly. On the Welsh coast, tourist developments are also a threat.

Sliene gallica has now virtually disappeared from northern Europe, but it is widespread in central and southern Europe and occurs as a roadside weed throughout much of the temperate world.

Small-flowered catchfly, Silene gallica

Small-flowered Catchfly, Silene gallica var. quinquevulneraria, growing on a sandy bank.

Wikipedia lists two other English names for Small-flowered Catchfly – Common Catchfly and Windmill Pink.

The plant isn’t considered to be edible. The Plants For A Future website lists a couple of possible medicinal uses but you should look for cures elsewhere, given the plant’s rarity in Britain.

Daisy Bush, Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’

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Brachyglottis 'Sunshine'

Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’ with a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly.

We all need some sunshine, especially on a dull and damp December day.

Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’ provides cheer during the winter with its mass of evergreen, greyish, ovate leaves backed with white felt. It then provides an extra treat in June and July with its yellow daisy flowers (hence the name ‘Daisy Bush’). It is a popular garden shrub and was one of my Dad’s favourites, so I have fond memories of it from early childhood.

My Dad knew Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’ as Senecio greyi, which has now been reclassified as Brachyglottis greyi. This is a native of New Zealand’s North Island, where it grows on rocky outcrops on the coast in hot sunny places with poor soils, eventually forming mounds up to 2 metres (6.5 feet) tall and 1.8 metres (6 feet) wide. It is a member of the Asteraceae, the daisy family (note 1).

However, Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’ is not pure Brachyglottis greyi, but one of the Dunedin Hybrids, the result of crosses originating in horticulture early in the twentieth century between three New Zealand species of Brachyglottis. The parent species are described on the NZ Flora website: Brachyglottis greyi, Brachyglottis laxifolia, and Brachyglottis compacta. B. laxifolia and B. compacta are shorter than B. greyi – both only grow to 1 metre (3.3 feet) tall.

Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’ is a very adaptable garden plant. It is given a hardiness rating of H4 on the RHS website (hardy through most of the UK, -10 to -5 degrees Celsius) and likes sun or semi-shade on a variety of soils. It does is especially well where the soil is well drained. In our north-facing back garden it is doing well on sandy loam, where it is in the sun during the afternoon. When I was growing up, it also thrived in our gardens in North-east Scotland (slightly acidic loam) and the West Midlands (clay).

The shrub is also very tolerant of exposed seaside places and can be grown as a windbreak. My grandmother grew large and luxuriant specimens in her seaside garden on Anglesey in North Wales (note 2). From my own experience it is drought tolerant and doesn’t get damaged by slugs and snails. It is also resistant to deer and usually free of any pests or diseases. Low branches sometimes root and can be used to propagate new plants; it’s easy to take cuttings too.

It will spread out sideways to form a wide, low bush but it can be kept in check (or in a neater shape, perhaps as a hedge) by a regular prune during the growing season. The RHS website gives pruning instructions (pruning Group 8). If you just want the foliage, it is possible to remove the flowers, though for me they are a major part of the plant’s attraction.

Although it isn’t a native British species, Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’ has been become naturalised in parts of the British Isles in the last thirty years, particularly in grassy places, on rough ground and in sand dunes. The plant is not edible and has no known medicinal uses, according to the Plants for a Future website.

For a non-native, it is a surprisingly good plant for wildlife. Butterflies (such as the Small Tortoiseshell pictured above) and hoverflies will visit the flowers and because the plant is a dense evergreen it is a favoured overwintering place for other insects. On warm days in spring in our back garden, Gorse Shieldbugs (Piezodorus lituratus) bask and sometimes mate on the leaves. Our Dunnocks (Prunella modularis) take advantage of this insect life by hunting on the ground beneath the branches.

Gorse Shieldbugs

Gorse Shieldbugs on the leaves of Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’.

Notes

Note 1 – I have already written about other members of the Asteraceae, including Oxeye Daisy, Pineapple Weed, Gallant Soldier, Dandelion, Mexican Fleabane, Nodding Bur-Marigold and Bristly Oxtongue. I give more information on the family and the structure of their flowers in my post on Nodding Bur-Marigold.

Note 2 – My grandmother’s Brachyglottis bushes seemed to tower high above me, but I was only a child so they were probably no more than 1.8 metres (six feet) tall.

More Sand Dune Fungi

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Last year I wrote about some of the specialised sand dune fungi I had seen at Holkham in North Norfolk. This autumn has been one of the best I’ve known for fungi, with plentiful rainfall starting in late September and continuing into November.

Earlier this week my friend Sarah and I visited Holme Dunes, a beautiful Norfolk Wildlife Trust nature reserve at Holme-next-the-Sea, in the north-west corner of Norfolk. It’s a place I’ve visited in the winter to see birds, but this time our mission was to see more fungi, some of them particularly associated with sand dunes.

Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

Winter Stalkball, Tulostoma brumale

Winter Stalkball, Tulostoma brumale

We found Winter Stalkball, Tulostoma brumale, an exquisite little stalked puffball, no more than 3 centimetres (1.2 inches) tall, growing amongst mosses in the dunes. It’s one of those fungi where you spot a single specimen and then find a whole lot more nearby.

The First Nature website recommends looking in dune slacks just behind the first stable sand dune ridges, and this was exactly where we found them. Tulostoma brumale is described by Sterry and Hughes as a “distinctive lollipop-shaped puffball”, and by the First Nature website as “strange, almost other-worldly little fungi”. Both descriptions are very apt. The round head of the lollipop contains masses of spores, which are released through the hole at the top.

In spite of its exotic appearance, the Winter Stalkball is closely related to more familiar fungi such as Parasols (Macrolepiota procera) and the cultivated mushroom (Agaricus bisporus).

The fruit bodies of Winter Stalkballs persist throughout winter, into early spring. Winter Stalkballs are specialists of calcareous dunes but they can also grow on downland sites away from the coast or even on old walls with lime mortar. The NBN Atlas lists 284 records for the British Isles, mostly in southern England.

The specific name, brumale, means “of winter” and Tulostoma means “woolly club”.

Fomitiporia hippophaeicola

Formerly known as Phellinus hippophaeicola, this is a bracket fungus that grows on older, living branches of Sea Buckthorn, Hippophae rhamnoides.

The host plant is easy to recognise, a spiny bush with narrow lanceolate leaves with a silvery-green upper surface. Female plants are covered by a mass of distinctive orange berries in the autumn, which begin to bleach to white in early winter.

Sea Buckthorn, Hippophae rhamnoides

Sea Buckthorn, Hippophae rhamnoides

The fruiting body of Fomitiporia hippophaeicola is a semicircular, circular or hoof-shaped bracket. The upper surface is fawn, yellowish or rust brown with a velvety texture, becoming smoother and greyer with age. The underside is reddish brown, with  fine, rounded pores.

Fomitiporia hippophaeicola

Fomitiporia hippophaeicola on Sea Buckthorn.

Obligingly, the brackets were growing about four feet (1.2 metres) off the ground, so were easy to photograph.

Fomitiporia hippophaeicola

This is not a very common fungus and is restricted to older Sea Buckthorn bushes in coastal areas, including Norfolk, Lincolnshire, the Edinbugh area, South Wales and a few places on the south coast of England.

Collared Earthstar, Geastrum triplex

In contrast to the rare and small Tiny and Dwarf Earthstars I wrote about last October, the Collared Earthstar is not a dune specialist. It one of our commonest species of Geastrum. Nonetheless, it is a magnificent sight and I’m always glad to see it.

Collared Earthstar, Geastrum triplex

Collared Earthstar, Geastrum triplex

Young specimens of Geastrum triplex are onion-shaped, then the outer layer of the fruit body splits into five to seven rays that are 5 – 11cm across when fully open. The Collared Earthstar’s flesh is creamy buff, maturing to brown and cracking with age.

It can be found on free-draining soils rich in humus, under deciduous or coniferous trees and even on woodchip, including in gardens. The specimens we found were growing near pine trees.

Blackening Waxcap, Hygrocybe conica

Waxcap fungi, which I wrote about in November 2013, are found in “unimproved” grassland (which has not been damaged by the application of artificial fertilisers). The Blackening Waxcap is one of the commonest species, with nearly 7000 records in the NBN Atlas. It isn’t just confined to dunes – we have it in Earlham Cemetery in Norwich.

Blackening Waxcap, Hygrocybe conica

Blackening Waxcaps, Hygrocybe conica

The fruit body is red, orange or yellow when young, but older specimens gradually turn black and can persist for many weeks. The caps vary in shape, but start off conical, hence the specific name, conica. The old specimens in my photograph are totally black but still have a characteristic umbo (pointed dome) at the top.

Grey Knight, Tricholoma terreum

Underneath the pine trees we found some handsome fungi with grey, felty caps and greyish white stipes. These were Grey Knights, Tricholoma terreum.

Grey Knights, Tricholoma terreum

Grey Knights, Tricholoma terreum

They usually occur in groups and like calcareous to neutral soil where pines are growing.  The specific name terreum means “earth”, presumably referring to the colour of the cap. There are over a thousand records of this fungus in the NBN Atlas.

References

As with my previous post about Sand Dune Fungi, there is not that much information on the internet about these fungi, compared to some of the subjects I have written about. I have relied heavily on the First Nature website for much of the information and the NBN Atlas website for details of distribution in the British Isles. Other sources include Wikipedia and, as ever, the excellent book “Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms & Toadstools” by Paul Sterry and Barry Hughes (Harper Collins 2009).