Great Orme April 19th 2006
Erodium moschatum(Musk Stork's-bill)
Erophila glabrescens(Glabrous Whitlowgrass)
Hieracium pseudoleyi (Purple-flushed Hawkweed
Cotoneaster cambricus(Wild Cotoneaster in May)
Scrophularia vernalis(Spring Figwort)
Hirneola auricula-judae (Jews-ear Fungus)
Afternoon: Cliffs and hills
We walked back to the green triangle for lunch on what was now a beautiful Spring day prior to exploring the nearby grasslands and limestone cliffs. The limestone cliffs themselves are home to several small Sorbus rupicola (Rock Whitebeam) shrubs which at this time of year and after the cold Spring were only in bud. At the foot of the cliffs which is grassland containing a great deal of Cerastium tomentosum but in one patch this has hybridised with Cerastium arvense which flowers a little earlier than C. tomentosum but was only in bud when we saw it.
Also on the cliffs Wendy pointed out the early flowering hawkweed Hieracium pseudoleyi (Purple-flushed Hawkweed) named after Augustin Ley.
From here we climbed to the top of a hill which overlooks Llandudno and the Little Orme and here Wendy showed us the difference between Cerastium semidecandrum (Little Mouse-ear) with its almost transparent bracts and Cerastium diffusum (Sea Mouse-ear) which has green herbaceous bracts.
Spring flowers are often quite tiny and by kneeling down in the grass we found various Erophila species (Whitlowgrass) species one of which Wendy identified as Erophila glabrescens (Glabrous Whitlowgrass). From here we went further along and to our delight found a fine stand of the missing Scrophularia vernalis (Spring Figwort) just coming into flower. Descending the hill towards the cliffs again a fallen branch had an excellent fruiting body of the fungus Hirneola auricula-judae which enjoys the politically incorrect vernacular name of Jew’s–ear Fungus.
The rarest plant on the Great Orme is probably the Cotoneaster cambricus (Wild cotoneaster) and Wendy took us to see this plant although there were no flowers and little in the way of leaves. Nearby a friend had managed to cultivate one of these plants in his garden and we were very kindly allowed to see this. Seeing Cotoneaster cambricus growing in rich soil is a revelation. It is a stout, healthy spreading bush covered in leaves and nothing at all like its straggly parents in the rocks.
Wendy explained that this was probably because the rich Victorian collectors offered the folk of Llandudno many for specimens of the Wild Cotoneaster and gradually they took all the plants which could be dug up and sold them. The only ones they couldn’t reach were embedded in rocks which is where the remaining half dozen or so plants are today. The most likely reason for their relative impoverished appearance is that growing where they do there is little to sustain them hence their rather straggly depauperate appearance. In other words it is very likely that the plant we see and nurture is nothing like the ones which the Victorians coveted.
The photo shown here is of C. cambricus later in the year.