Settle Wildflowers 134: 1 June 2024: Malham Tarn Fen Globeflower, Carex lasiocarpa, Climate Walk, 20 Days wild, Hawthorn

I led a walk for six people. (Seven including myself). We met at 9am. I needed to finish by 11am as I had another meeting down in Settle - as did two others of the party.  We have these as joint walks for Churches Together in Settle and for Craven Conservation Group.

On the way driving up I noted that the hawthorns both at Winskill Stones Reserve, and on the road below Globeflower Wood were just breaking into flower - they still had lots of buds too.

The Globeflowers that we had come to see were looking fine, though I was told that they had been looking even better one or two weeks earlier.

I noted seeing ten species of sedge in flower near the part of the path that we walked on. And pleased that one member is keen on them and spotting them often ahead of me.

I just show one : Carex lasiocarpa - the slender sedge. Some years it does not flower at all. It has very slender leaves so is be easy to miss.

The previous day on facebook Wendy English wrote that she had heard it was flowering well in Ascomb Bog so she had searched for it flowering in Fen Bog and found it.  I said I would look out for it at Malham Tarn - and it is there. flowering well this year.. The flowers will be bigger in two weeks time.  Is has hairy utricles, 

Montane Eyebright

Salix pentandra is out showing its five anthered flowers and gleaming regular edged sweet smelling leaves

Salix pentandra - Bay Willow

Salix pentandra - Bay Willow

The tiny Cranberry is a beauty
 - its tiny leaved shoots trail over the Sphagnum moss.

We pause to read today's Pray and Fast for the Climate sheet. Click though and see what issues are high lighted today 1 June 2024Click though and see what issues are high lighted today 1 June 2024. 
This is a beautiful nature reserve. Let us be thankful for it.

We saw and heard Reed Bunting and Blackcap.  We saw the ponies out on the mire. There may be 6 now.  We saw five lizards, sitting on the ridge of the -now plastic - boardwalk. M recalled that she came up in c1967 in a work party of conservation volunteers the year the board walk was fist built - then out of wooden slats. 

Here is a list of flowers we saw: 

Crepis paludosa just coming out

Salix pentandra male flowers out - must have been out a week.

Saxifraga hypnoides on the tussocks.. though the tussock area looked a bit grazed by the ponies

Pyrenean Scurvy grass

Globeflower fully open but probably a week or two past its best

Northern Marsh-orchid just coming out

Lychnis flos-cuculi- only just coming out, most ot out,

Menyanthes trifoliata just right.. must have been out at least a week

Vaccinium vitis-idae out

Other willows now in fruit.

Luzula multiflora some still with anthers

Carex rostrata -in flower

Carex lasiocarpa - a good year for flowering - only just coming out  (Rare in England, less rare in LadkeDistrict, Scotland and N Wales) 

Carex disticha

Carex appropinquata (a very rare species)

Carex diandra (a rare species)

Carex canescens

 Carex panicea

Carex flacca getting old in car park

Carex nigra

Carex rostrata

(And I can think of eleven more species in different parts of the estate that we did not see.)

Euphrasia officinalis subsp. monticola  in flower - Montane Eyebright, Silverside, showing well on west side of the board walk (horse grazing keeping other stuff down?) (A Rare species) . (Alan Silverside whose name is the author citation for this species , showed me this species -here- back in c1981. I am privileged to have met him!!)  https://plantatlas2020.org/atlas/2cd4p9h.7mm6zd

Serratula tinctoria -only in bud -needs at least two more weeks till it will flower)

Juncus actuiflorus not flowering. grazed by ponies.

Equisetum fluviatile some with cones in "Paul Holmes Pond"

Potentilla erecta.

Ranunculus flamula

Goldlocks buttercup - over (only saw one flower)

Ranunculus acris

Ajuga reptans

Deschampsia flexuosa only just coming out.

Calamgrostis stricta -out  (A rare species) 

Schedonorus giganteus - in pothole lane itself and increasing in plants numbers - but not yet flowering.

Festuca rubra

Eriophorum and vaginatum and angustifolium both in fruit with white heads

Mare's-tail. (Too far away to check for flowers).

Index of Wildflowers around Settle posts