One of the two luckiest stinking hawk’s-beards at Rye?
4th July 2010, Sunday
Apologies for the poor quality of this image, but it is the only one I have of a very lucky stinking hawk’s-beard. Not because it’s seed fell on stony ground (although that did not help) but because it drifted over it’s security fence landing in a large expanse of gravel grazed by rabbits. I was surprised to find two plants in this area, although I restricted my searches to avoid concerning bird watchers who viewed my movements with great suspicion. Inside the rabbit-proof security fence the story was different. In that plot there were at least 2941 plants, some so crowded together that counting became very difficult and that figure is a minimum count! Rabbits, it seems just love to eat stinking hawk’s-beards, oblivious of their rarity. No, I will change that. The rabbit’s just love to eat anything bearing a flower on that part of the shingle beach!
So numbers of this very rare plant continue to explode at Rye. 10 in 2005, 47 in 2006, 353 in 2007, 417 in 2008, 1035 last year, and at least 3035 over the whole reserve this year, all thanks to the protection offered by rabbit-proof fencing. It does make you wonder how the plant managed to cope a hundred or so years ago before the advent of Species Action Plans and Species Recovery Plans!
The picture is not one of uniform expansion, however. The original introduction plot has seen it’s population fall from 382 plants in 2008 to only 70 this year. It is possible that, in the absence of rabbits, the sward along the railway track that the plants favour has become too fixed and overgrown with other species. There may be some benefits to these wooly-coated nibblers!
Most of the plants grow in or near the disturbed shingle in the fore-ground on this picture. The picture below shows the more open sward of the new plot, where most of the plants now grow.
Perhaps a little gardening is required in the original plot.
One of the notable features of this plant is that despite being regarded as a shingle specialist, it tends to avoid natural shingle communities, in this case prefering the old railway line where the shingle has some fine material (sand) mixed with the shingle. Just occasionally some plants do manage to grow on the shingle and frequently reach a very large size. So, perhaps germination here is difficult, but once established the conditions can be very suitable for this plant allowing the few survivors to grow to a large size.