We welcomed visiting botanists to the Island in October, and as is so often the case when we have visitors we found a plant that has not been recorded in Jersey before. Carduus pycnocephalus Plymouth Thistle is a thistle from the Mediterranean that has found its way north and has been spotted in several areas of the UK. Our visitor Nick Aston, the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland recorder for the Isle of Wight, spotted the thistle in a field in St. Martin and identified it as Plymouth Thistle since he had seen it before. It is very similar to Carduus tenuiflorus Slender Thistle and we might have passed it by, thinking it was just that.
In the same weedy field was another nice find, Ranunculus sardous Hairy Buttercup flowering in the sunshine. This is a plant we rarely see. The warm weather recently has enabled many plants to continue flowering, including this Buttercup, which has hairy stems as the name suggests.
We had gone to this area of St. Martin to look at the fruits of the Mespilus germanica Medlar. This area has long been known for wild Medlar trees in the hedgerows, not the cultivated varieties that can be found in gardens. The difference between the wild and the cultivated varieties is that the former has thorns and smaller fruit.
Botany Secretary – Anne Haden
