On being difficult… Tim Rich

Hieracium attenboroughianum T. C. G. Rich

• Bored of the usual flowers and seen everything locally?

• Writing a county flora?

• Want to find new species and see things nobody else has seen?

• Want to pretend you are a credible botanist?

• …then difficult plants are for you!

We have a problem:

•There are lots of difficult plants

•There are very few botanists able to identify them

Consequently, distribution data (and therefore conservation

data) are incomplete, out of date and not comparable with

other plant data

Hieracium umbellatum

Common, easily identified, yet high proportion of

old records

Why may plants be difficult to identify?

Sometimes to do with plants

• Taxonomic problems (e.g. scurvygrasses -Cochlearia)

• Hybridisation (e.g. willows - Salix)

• Morphological reduction (e.g. glassworts - Salicornia)

• Modification by environment (e.g. brambles - Rubus)

• Some taxa can only be identified at specific times of year (e.g. dandelions -Taraxacum)

• Some taxa reproduce apomictically resulting in a large number of closely related, clonal forms (e.g. Sea lavenders - Limonium).

Sometimes to do with botanists and resources

• May simply not have been studied enough

• Information available to help identify them may not be adequate

Scale of the problem

Major genus No. native taxa No. endemics Apomicts

Alchemilla 12 1 Yes

Euphrasia 21 9

Hieracium c. 430 250+ Yes

Limonium 14 7 Yes

Rosa 12 0

Rubus c. 325 c. 210 Yes

Salicornia 7 0

Sorbus 48 45 Yes

Taraxacum c. 245 41 Yes

Ulmus (70+) ?

Ranunc. auricomus (100+) ? Yes

‘Normal’ species 1470 10

Totals UK c. 2700 c. 541

~54% UK flora ‘difficult’

Scale of the resource

Number of specialists in major UK critical genera.

Critical group No. Specialists

Alchemilla 3 Bradshaw, Lynes, Roberts

Euphrasia 2 Metherall, Silverside

Hieracium 4 Jones, McCosh, Rich, Scott, Tennant

Limonium 2 Boorman, Ingrouille

Rosa 2 Ballantyne, Maskew

Rubus 7 Allen, Ballantyne, Bull, Earl, Newton, Porter, Randall

Salicornia 2 Dalby, Ferguson

Sorbus 3 Houston, McAllister, Rich

Taraxacum 3 Richards, Reid, Porter

Ulmus 3 Armstrong, Coleman

Ranun.auricomus 1 Leslie

Dactylorhiza ~ as many as there are botanists…!

• Note only 8/35 ‘professionals’ (of which 6 retired)

Dave Earl, 1987

• Majority of difficult plants are apomicts (i.e. reproduce

clonally) in relatively few genera

• Apomicts often regarded as not equivalent to ‘ordinary

species’ – and hence not worth bothering with, but …

• Apomicts differ morphologically

H. neomarginatum

Small alpine with

basal rosette

H. strictiforme

Tall leafy species of

riverbanks

H. asteridiophyllum H. cillense

e.g. Distribution of hawkweed

endemics at Craig y Cilau

• Differ ecologically

Sorbus

leyana

Sorbus minima -

parthenocarpic

•Differ biologically eg Sorbus fruit production

Group D Sorbus aria (Ireland)

Group F Sorbus cf aria (Ireland)

Group E Sorbus porrigenti formis (Britain)

Sorbus aria (England)

Sorbus aria (England)

Sorbus aria (France)

Sorbus porrigenti formis 'Bristol form'

0.01 changes

Group C Sorbus eminens

Group B Menai Strait

Group A Sorbus hibernica

•Differ genetically,

cytologically and

biochemically

DNA tree of Sorbus

hibernica and related taxa

(AFLP)

• Have distinct distributions

S&M 16. Hieracium strictiforme (Zahn) RoffeyS&M 23. Hieracium tavense (Ley) Ley

Hieracium tavense Hieracium strictiforme

Are apomicts worth recognising?

YES!

• Apomicts from a major part of our flora

• Recognisable morphologically

• Behave as species differing in biology, ecology, etc.

• Complete reproductive spectrum from outbreeders

(eg Geum) to in-breeders (eg Capsella) to apomicts

(eg Sorbus)

• But to identify difficult plants, we need resources

•Naming vouchers

•Training courses (eg Taraxacum workshop)

•Providing accessible literature

Resources: experts

Resources: herbaria

Advantages

• Identification can be checked

• comparative material

• may have unique information

Disadvantages

• few computerised catalogues available

• may not be revised and up-to-date taxonomy

• pressed plants may not look like those in the field

• costs to travel, may not be close, not open at

weekends

To do difficult plants, need own herbarium

•space, time, cost, pests

Resources: literature

• monographs (e.g. P. D. Sell Hieracium)

• atlases (e.g. Rubus Atlas)

• county floras/atlases (variable)

• journals (Watsonia, BEC reports etc.)

• bibliographies (Simpson, BSBI database)

• BSBI literature database

But expensive, some hard to trace, may end up

with electronic copies only

Resources: databases

• Specialist databases best, eg Hieracium, Rubus,

Taraxacum

• BSBI Big Database (but so many duplicates and …)

• Give a start, what is known, what else is likely to be here

• But cannot check identification, may be out-of-date, lots

of errors (and often compounded errors)

Resources: online

•Many pictures …

•iSpot

But be very careful…

… this isn’t Sorbus lancastriensis

Case study - How to take on a difficult plant:

Hieracium mirandum – Remote Hawkweed

(You don’t need to know all to know one)

1. Collate existing knowledge

2. Field survey

3. Revise/review information

4. Write it up!

Hieracium mirandum – Remote Hawkweed

First described Sell & West (1968) from Yorkshire

Type specimen 6 sites

•distinctive species with 3-7, elliptic, nearly

untoothed stem leaves, the lower petiolate and the

upper semi-clasping.

Tarn Beck, Cumbria 1969-2013

Gearstones, Ribblehead1902-2008 † Stean, Yorkshire 1962 †

Newbiggin-on-Lune, Cumbria 1985 †

Also gone from Masson Hill, Derbyshire and Orton, Cumbria

2008 status: 2/6 sites, total 14 plants

Journal paper Book

2013 status: 1/6 sites, 1 plant

Case study 2 - How to take on difficult plants

Hieracium jonesianum

Advice for difficult plants

• Have clear idea of what you want to do (learn them all, learn

some, ‘stamp collect’ for flora)

• Go on a field training course to learn how to interpret

characters

• Prepare in advance from many different sources

• Get to know a few local taxa and build up knowledge over time

• Do it properly - collect plants, take photographs, make notes,

revise and review, and document

• Don’t expect quick returns, but the long haul will be worth it;

you can make a difference