In a previous blog post, we introduced you to our National Plant Monitoring Scheme square at Cornwood, near Ivybridge. Last month, we returned to our square and completed our first survey of the year.
On our previous visit, we had identified the plots we were going to use, so now it was a case of finding them again, laying out a survey square and recording what plant species were there. Our first square was high up in the NE corner of the square, along the edge of a earthwork dug into the ground. The square was heavily grazed, and we only found four species there: gorse, wavy hair-grass, tormentil, and heath bedstraw. All of these species are indicators for heathland, but key species such as bilberry and heathers were completely absent, presumably munched away by the local sheep. This was the case across the site, and we found hardly any heather even when walking between our plots.
The second plot was more fun. This was a wet area (or ‘flush’) that we had identified on our recce, an area of wet ground high on the hill that fed a small stream cutting across the site. The area was dominated by more wavy hair-grass, soft rush and sphagnum, but the real find was a plant I knew to be carnivorous but couldn’t recall the name of. Fortunately Kev had an app that stepped in and took the word sundew off the tip of my tongue:
After this excitement, we had two more plot to visit and recorded more species that were positive indicators for both acid grassland and dry heath: heath bedstraw, tormentil, wavy hair-grass and a bit of bilberry on the higher plot. We recorded both as acid grassland, because the hair-grass dominated and there was no heather at all, and the presence of a couple of sorrel species confirmed this classification:
One of our favourite finds emerged right at the end though, when our eyes were drawn to a small succulent plant with beautiful pinkish-white star-shaped flowers. This was English stonecrop sedum anglicum, and we found a tiny little patch of it growing among the moss in the crevice of a boulder. It was once of those plants that once you had spotted it your eye was in, and we found a lovely patch of it on a bare sunny rock on the walk back to the car. It looked like a starry map of constellations laid out on the ground, a stunning and beautiful sight that we’d have probably walked past if it weren’t for the NPMS.
It was a really good day out and, even though we only found a dozen or so species, we learnt quite a lot just through having to look closely and identify plants. We signed up for the NPMS with a little bit of trepidation because we’re both interested amateurs who have never really studied botany, but we had quite a lot of fun and it felt great to be contributing to this important national monitoring project. We’re really pleased to be involved and can’t wait to go back to our site later in the year.
If you want to know more about the NPMS, visit the National Plant Monitoring Scheme website where you can learn about survey methods and even sign up for your own square!