5
A Bramble Reconnaissance in Southern Ulster Author(s): D. E. Allen Source: The Irish Naturalists' Journal, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Dec. 14, 2005), pp. 166-169 Published by: Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25536689 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 08:08 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Naturalists' Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.34.79.79 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 08:08:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

A Bramble Reconnaissance in Southern Ulster

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: A Bramble Reconnaissance in Southern Ulster

A Bramble Reconnaissance in Southern UlsterAuthor(s): D. E. AllenSource: The Irish Naturalists' Journal, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Dec. 14, 2005), pp. 166-169Published by: Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25536689 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 08:08

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The IrishNaturalists' Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.79 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 08:08:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: A Bramble Reconnaissance in Southern Ulster

Ir. Nat J. Volume 28 No 4 2005

A bramble reconnaissance in southern Ulster

D.E.ALLEN

Lesney Cottage, Middle Road, Winchester, Hampshire, S022 5EJ

At the end of August 2004 an invitation to take part in a weekend course on several critical groups of Irish vascular plants, sponsored by the Botanical Society of the British Isles, based on Derrygonnelly Field Centre in Co Fermanagh, provided me with opportunities for further recording and collecting of the microspecies of Rubus fruticosus aggregate in underworked parts of southern Ulster. Most of these lay mainly to the south of the areas covered by P. Hackney and A. Newton in their much wider-ranging tour of Ulster for the same purpose in 1985 (Harron 1987) and more or less outside the more westerly and more

southerly sweeps reported on by Newton (I986, 1994) and Allen (1990,1994). That opportunity in turn provided me with a chance to carry out a long-intended inspection of the bramble florula of the Mourne Mountains in Co Down, which has escaped attention almost entirely since the classic, but inevitably now much-outdated, survey by Stewart and Praeger (1892).

The timing of the course was unfortunately far from optimal from the Rubus point of view. Even around Dublin most brambles have passed wholly into fruit in low-lying areas by the beginning of August, and although the flowering period is later in Ulster the difference is no greater than a fortnight or so. Rubus microspecies are more than ordinarily hard to discriminate in the field, even for anyone well-versed in this group, in the absence of petals and the associated floral organs, the colour, shape and size of which variously provide valuable characters, especially for a cursory visual sorting. Useful work can even so be done after all bushes have passed entirely into fruit provided the area under study is one in which the specialist is familiar with at least most of the entities liable to be met with. In unfamiliar areas, however, fieldwork in the 'off-season' is unduly prone to error, for in almost all parts of

England, Wales and Ireland about one-third of the entities are likely to be merely local in

origin and distribution (for which reason, by international convention, they now tend to be

disregarded for taxonomic purposes and denied Latin binomials). Except at more elevated levels, where more species still retained a high proportion of their petals, the potential for both

recording and collecting was consequently frustratingly limited.

In the account that follows the areas investigated are discussed in the order in which

they were visited. An asterisk (*) indicates a record additional for the vice-county concerned in the recently-published Atlas of British and Irish brambles (Newton and Randall 2004).

Voucher specimens supporting such records have been deposited in all cases in BM and in certain cases in BEL too; other specimens rated worthy of retention have been divided between those two herbaria in so far as the amount of material collected made that feasible.

The Mourne Mountains, Co Down (H38) Four and a half days were allotted to investigating the hedges and plantations along

the foot and lower levels of this range, with the westernmost tip of Newcastle as my base. The

greater part of the time was spent along the north side, one day on the south-east side in the

vicinity of Kilkeel and a further one at a succession of points at higher levels along the north west side between Hilltown and Bryansford.

Almost everywhere at the lowest levels the hedges proved rewardingly rich in Rubus

species. Round Newcastle the still-rural stretches of Tullybrannigan Road and its ancient

counterpart to the north, Wild Forest Lane, proved particularly productive, in welcome contrast to the plantations (including promising-looking Donard Wood) in which hardly a single bramble

petal remained. The great surprise straightaway in that area was a profusion of */?. melanodermis Focke ex Rogers, spilling over even into garden hedges well inside Newcastle. A species mainly of Dorset and the Cherbourg area of Normandy, this has been detected in recent years at many points along the southern fringe of Ireland from Co Kerry to Co Wicklow, but the latter has appeared till now to be its northern limit - and that is well north

166

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.79 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 08:08:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 3: A Bramble Reconnaissance in Southern Ulster

Ir. Nat J. Volume 28 No 4 2005

of its equivalent limit in Britain, which is in South Wales (apart from an obviously introduced colony in a plantation near Edinburgh). The mild and moist microclimate along the north foot of the Mournes has presumably enabled it to colonize this tract of country so far to the north of the rest of its Irish range in such impressive quantity. This colonization may even be relatively recent, for the only sign of the species found on the south-east side of the Mournes

was on a plantation margin at the entrance to Mourne Park. (Since my return, however, older herbarium material from Co Louth and Co Monaghan has been recognized as this, so it

evidently extends across the region more widely.)

The bramble florula round Kilkeel proved sharply different, most obviously in the abundance of R. anisacanthos G. Braun. The hedges of a farm lane off D7 just north of the

Aughrim River at the north-east tip of the town (J305152) yielded a colony of *R. albionis W. C. R. Watson, the northernmost find yet for both Ireland and Britain of this western species so abundant in Co Wicklow; accompanying it, and extending to the adjacent hedges of D7,

was *R. boudiccae Bull & Edees, which was in a further farm lane off Drumcro Road about 1km to the north-west. Also in the environs ofthe town was a bush of *R. dumnoniensis Bab.,

on a bracken-covered waste site by the crossroads at J292148. A strikingly distinct Hystricopsan member of the Dewberry-like section Corylifolii with large populations at both ends of Drumcro Road has disappointingly turned out to be nameless.

Apart from the garden escape *R. armeniacus Focke, the so-called 'Himalayan Giant', just outside a garden, the only other noteworthy finds that the Newcastle area produced were a lone bush of R. errabundus Neum. by Foley's Bridge in Tollymore Park and three more of R. dumnoniensis in Wild Forest Lane. The north-west foothills for their part brought a patch of R. errabundus but otherwise only the usual ten or so species to which I could put names - in addition to the standard quota of unfamiliar anonymous ones. The appearance in quantity of R. dasyphyllus (Rogers) Marshall and R. polyanthemus Lindeb. at those slightly higher levels was noticeable.

Co Fermanagh (H33) Thanks to R. D. Meikle, Fermanagh enjoys the distinction of being the only Irish county

in which any systematic collecting of Rubus took place between the intensive work of H. W. Lett and C. H. Waddell in their respective Co Down parishes in the years 1894-1907 and the series of visits by British specialists in the group that began with that of E. S. Edees to Connemara and the Burren in 1970. The extent of Meikle's work has been insufficiently appreciated, partly because the full list of records it gave rise to in the 1940s has lain

unpublished in the manuscript Flora of the county that he co-authored at that period, and

partly because the specimens dn which the majority of those records were based were donated to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and effectively semi-hidden by being scattered

through the very many folders that hold its extensive collection of British and Irish Rubus. A

high proportion of the 35 species that feature in that list rest solely on determinations at the time by W. C. R. Watson, in whose posthumous monograph (Watson 1958) some appeared in print as on record for v.c. H33. Though much of Watson's taxonomy has since been

discredited, unfortunately not all the specimens concerned have been located by either A. Newton or myself in our successive searches at Kew, with the regrettable result that the Meikle list can serve as a solid basis for further investigation only in limited part.

My three days' fieldwork south and east of Lower Lough Erne and a further morning west and east of Enniskillen were clearly insufficient to go very far in remedying that situation, even though the brambles were less far advanced on the whole than in Co Down. Some

interesting additions were made nonetheless. The most extraordinary - and geographically

inexplicable - of those was *R. caesarius, a species described by me in 1998 in recognition of

its abundance over much of Jersey (the alleged Roman name of which it bears). Apart from a

group of roadsides between Portsmouth and Southampton this is otherwise known through old herbarium specimens just from single localities in Gloucestershire and Co Cork, in both of which it may well have been an ephemeral introduction (though, if so, how those introductions

167

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.79 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 08:08:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 4: A Bramble Reconnaissance in Southern Ulster

Ir. Nat J. Volume 28 No 4 2005

came about is a mystery). It was consequently a shock to come across a patch of what was

unquestionably this same bramble looking seemingly native in open birch-willow woodland about 100m from the east shore of Lough Achork (H045555) inside Lough Navar Forest Park. Two days later a further patch revealed itself, in more artificial circumstances, round the edge of the car park beside the A46 below the Magho viewpoint (H062583), 3km from the first find, and on the last morning a third and even larger patch in a clay pasture close to the ruins of Monea Castle (H1649), very much further to the south-east. There could well be more waiting to be found - and in Ireland more widely. For the moment its presence in this area remains a

tantalizing enigma.

Accompanying the first of the R. caesarius patches was also one of *R. mucronuiatus Boreau, a species thinly scattered over the north and west of Ireland, together with a small amount of *R. bartonii Newton. The latter had already been encountered in plenty that day in other parts of Lough Navar Forest, colonizing in particular ground recently cleared of conifers

just as it does in its British headquarters, Cardiganshire (where it is the commonest bramble almost throughout the County), Added to the Irish list only in 1984 (Newton 1986), this

species is heavily concentrated in Ireland in the north-east corner of Connaught, to which these newly-found Fermanagh populations clearly constitute just an extension.

In the hillside plantation above the second patch of R. caesarius was a colony of R. echinatoides (Rogers) Daliman, and that was seen again soon after along the former railway line by Lough Bresk (H2060), the heavy clay of which also bore *R. boudiccae, R. calvatus

Lees ex Bloxam and R. conjungens (Bab.) Rogers. There was more R. calvatus \n cleared woodland in nearby Castle Archdale demesne and more R. boudiccae in the third R. caesarius locality. R. echinatoides similarly turned up again near Clabby, outside a conifer plantation (H4451), with a fine colony of *R. pruinosus Arrh. along the adjoining roadsides.

Co Tyrone (H36) The journey back to Belfast by car was interrupted by the sight of a high hedge looking

full of promise off B168 about 3km north of Clogher (H5153), which proved to hold more R. calvatus and R. echinatoides along with several indeterminables. The poorly-weeded shrubberies of Parkanaur House (H7361), much farther on, were no less productive. Yielding R. echinatoides again, R. mucronuiatus, R. longithyrsiger Lees ex Focke and R. lettii Rogers. They clearly merit a more extended inspection earlier in the flowering season.

Co Armagh (H37) A final stop at Peatlands Country Park (H8960) produced R. calvatus and R.

longithyrsiger again as well as a bush of R. scissus W. C. R. Watson among a tempting array of other species too far gone into fruit to be confidently recognized.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to Paul Hackney for inviting me to the Derrygonnelly weekend in the first place, for several forays by car that made the trip as a whole much more productive than it would otherwise have been and, not least, for his and Catherine's generous hospitality. I also have Alan Newton to thank, as on previous occasions, for help with determinations. The

Botanical Society of the British Isles made possible my attendance at Derrygonnelly, while a

grant from the Praeger Fund of the Royal Irish Academy enabled me to extend that to

investigating the Mournes. Their assistance was in both cases indispensable and is

acknowledged with gratitude.

References

ALLEN, D. E. (1990) Two further Irish bramble forays. Irish Naturalists* Journal 23: 257-262.

ALLEN, D. E. (1994) Brambles of north-west Ireland. Irish Naturalists' Journal 24: 375-376.

168

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.79 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 08:08:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 5: A Bramble Reconnaissance in Southern Ulster

Ir. Nat. J. Volume 28 No 4 2005

HARRON, J. (1987) Flora of Lough Neagh. Irish Naturalists' Journal Committee, Belfast and University of Ulster, Coleraine.

NEWTON, A. (1986) An Irish bramble foray. Irish Naturalists' Journal 22: 62-67.

NEWTON, A. (1994) Rubi in southern and mid-western Ireland. Irish Naturalists' Journal 24: 368-374.

NEWTON, A. & RANDALL, R. D. (2004) Atlas of British and Irish brambles. Botanical Society ofthe British Isles, London.

STEWART, S. A. & PRAEGER, R. LI. (1892) Report on the botany ofthe Mourne Mountains. Proceedings ofthe Royal Irish Academy Ser. 3. 2: 335-380.

WATSON, W. C. R. (1958) Handbook of the Rubi of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

169

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.79 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 08:08:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions