BERWICKSHIRE VICE-COUNTY RARE PLANT REGISTER Privately circulated by M E Braithwaite, Clarilaw, Hawick, Roxburghshire, TD9 8PT Text and compilation © M E Braithwaite 2004 Printed by Buccleuch Printers Ltd, Hawick Financially supported by BERWICKSHIRE VICE-COUNTY RARE PLANT REGISTER (together with a Check List of Vascular Plants) Michael E Braithwaite 2004 As Vice-County Recorder for The Botanical Society of the British Isles (Reissued as PDF with minor corrections 2011) About BSBI The Botanical Society of the British Isles Has a membership of about 3,000 amateur and professional botanists Is the leading charitable society promoting the study and enjoyment of British and Irish wild plants Maintains a network of 152 Vice -county recorders, a central database of threatened plants and a panel of referees for difficult plants Maintains a comprehensive scientific database that enables the list of British and Irish plants to be kept up to date Carries out national surveys and publishes the results, notably and most recently the acclaimed New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora, 2002 Publishes authoritative identification handbooks on difficult plants such as sedges and roses Promotes the publication of local floras and county rare plant registers Holds field meetings and conferences to bring botanists together, whether amateur or professional Publishes journals to enable members to share their observations and the results of their studies Encourages the training of botanists of all ages More information will be found on the BSBI web site at www.bsbi.org.uk Membership and other enquiries may be sent to BSBI Honorary General Secretary, c/o Department of Botany, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD. Berwickshire Vice-County Rare Plant Register Contents ________________________________ Page Map of VC 81 Berwickshire 2 Author’s Preface 3 Submission of Botanical Records 4 Introduction 5 Glossary of Abbreviations 9 Table of the Rarity Status of the Taxa in the Rare Plant Register 10 Species Accounts and Site Register 15 Table of Recorders 169 Table of Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Wildlife Reserves 170 Table of All Sites of Botanical Interest 171 Map of Recorded Sites 176 Analysis of the Historical Data in the Rare Plant Register 177 Check List of Vascular Plants 184 Table of Taxa where the status differs from the Census Catalogue 219 Summary of Check List 220 References 222 1 Berwickshire Vice-County Rare Plant Register To Arthur J Smith (1912 – 2000), so knowledgeable in all branches of natural history, who introduced me to fellow naturalists in the Scottish nd Borders following a chance meeting where orchids grow on 2 August 1972 The Watsonian Vice-county of Berwickshire follows the boundaries of the pre-regionalisation county of Berwickshire with the addition of small areas near Chapel on Leader and near the Monynut Water where the Vice-county follows old parish boundaries. 2 Berwickshire Vice-County Rare Plant Register Author’s Preface ________________________________ I have had the privilege of studying Berwickshire’s plants in detail for over twenty-five years, albeit as an amateur with a separate profession to follow in the working week. My interest has given me a deep respect for our wild plants, for their extraordinary ability to survive and indeed thrive in all their diversity in what is often a hostile environment with constant disturbance from mankind added to more natural forces and competition between plant species. In presenting this account of the rare and scarce plants, many of which are in decline, I have taken care to include relevant success stories to maintain a balanced perspective. The historical record of Berwickshire’s flora is a splendid legacy stemming largely from the work of Dr George Johnston and the members of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club that he founded in 1831. Nevertheless this activity largely died out with the war in 1914 and in Berwickshire it was not until the Botanical Society of the British Isles launched its Atlas survey in 1954 that the recording tradition was reborn. The fine historical record has made it worthwhile to include in this rare plant register a full record of former plant localities and to examine the trends in these localities over time. For many scarce plants the trend of localities lost is horrendous indeed, though there are also numerous examples where locality survival has been high. The driving forces of these changes are well known and are primarily agricultural but it is still difficult to tease out just what has caused many of the individual losses. My own perceptions of the key factors causing change have varied as the years have passed. In the 1970’s I perceived the universal availability of the JCB coupled with grant incentives to be the key factor leading to the loss of so many of the remaining wet field-corners and small wetlands. By the 1980’s conifer forestry under tax breaks was thought to be the greatest issue with the uplands suffering much change. The 1990’s saw livestock grants favouring unrealistically high stocking densities, especially on hill land, and these were seen to be the final straw leading to the loss of localities for some moorland-edge species. In the last decade a new perceived threat has come to the fore in the unintended side-effects of action in the interests of wildlife. New amenity planting, pond creation, the fencing-off of watersides and deliberate under-grazing have all led to a catalogue of lost plant localities as well as to some notable gains. Some of the losses have admittedly been from habitats so fragmented that the loss of scarce species had become almost inevitable but others have been from good botanical sites. This is a time when there is a great need to stand back and seek to review these prescriptions for wildlife to ensure that the botanical interest is always fully considered. 3 Berwickshire Vice-County Rare Plant Register Submission of Botanical Records MEB as the current BSBI VC Recorder welcomes the submission of botanical records to him at Clarilaw, Hawick, Roxburghshire, TD9 8PT. In principle all records for Berwickshire are welcome. In practice feedback to individual recorders soon leads to an understanding of what is of mutual interest. MEB can offer help with identification and for critical taxa voucher material, limited to what is strictly necessary for identification, should be submitted where conservation considerations allow. MEB has access to BSBI’s national referee service to confirm the identity of taxa requiring specialist knowledge. All records are accepted on the understanding that the information provided by the recorder will be entered on a computer database, may be used in the production of a county flora and other publications and will be available for wildlife conservation, research and education. BSBI botanical records for Berwickshire are periodically copied to SBBRC so there is no need for recorders to copy their records to SBBRC. If records are sent to SBBRC rather than to MEB it implies opting out of the offer of validation. Validation is a key element of botanical recording, especially for rare, scarce and difficult plants. 4 Berwickshire Vice-County Rare Plant Register Introduction ________________________________ The circulation of this County Rare Plant Register, or register of nationally or locally rare or scarce plants, is part of a national initiative by BSBI to disseminate key plant conservation data. It is supported by a database of the underlying data. It is hoped that the CRPR will not only be of value in itself as a contribution towards a full flora of Berwickshire but that it will also motivate botanists to contribute further records of the taxa selected. Such records may be generated not only by revisiting the relevant sites but also by adding records from new sites whether from new fieldwork or from a review of datasets that have not been accessed in the preparation of this register, which remains in many ways a provisional record. Rationale The CRPR is a research document: It aims to document the diversity of the local flora at a point in history It provides a record of change in the countryside. Many of the localities of the scarcer plants have been known for two centuries and, taken collectively, their fate can provide evidence of past change in particular habitats and a basis from which to monitor future change It aims, taken together with similar documents from other vice-counties, to provide an overview of the national status of individual species to inform decision-makers at national and local level. The locality data has been collected with these research objectives in mind and the relationship between recorder and landowner depends on this understanding being respected. In particular the plant locality data is based on a partial species-related survey with little associated site-related survey and is certainly not complete, neither is it warranted to be accurate. Thus, in a planning context, the absence of scarce plant records from a site can offer only limited evidence of the absence of sensitive habitats, while the presence of scarce species can do no more than point to a possible need for full habitat survey with the landowner’s permission. Access The writer acknowledges with deep gratitude the remarkable tolerance he has enjoyed in his recording activities from landowners and land managers. Permission for access has been sought and granted for in- bye land away from footpaths but has also been enjoyed as a privilege on more open land. The inclusion of records from a site must not be taken as an open invitation to visit. Species Selection BSBI recommends that native and archaeophyte species currently present at three sites or less in the VC be included in the register as locally rare together with those present in ten sites or less as locally scarce, together with any nationally rare or scarce species that may be more frequent.