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THE ESSEX NATURALIST
Botanical Notes and Records for 1962
By S. T. Jermyn, F.L.S.
Collecting information and compiling records for a County
Flora is rather like fitting in the pieces of a giant jig-saw puzzle
but with one vital difference. It becomes easier to complete the
picture as the puzzle gets nearer completion, whereas it becomes
harder as time goes on, to find the missing links for the Flora.
Much more time and diligence has to be devoted to searching all
the odd places to find new records.
Essex is a large County, being some 978,000 acres in extent, so
it will be appreciated there is a lot of ground to cover. The key
to doing this efficiently and systematically lies in the recording.
Fortunately, this work can be conveniently divided into two parts
—collecting information during the flowering season and writing
up the records in the winter months.
To work the County thoroughly, I have adopted the artificial
divisions of the National Grid. This gives 57-10 km. grid squares.
These offer nice sizeable areas to work and they also show a
reasonable distribution pattern of plants for the County as a
whole, and what is more important, the missing species are readily
shown up.
The old Watsonian Vice-counties, 18 and 19, also Gibson's 8
divisions, are too large for this purpose.
A factor to be borne in mind here is that the more artificial
divisions one chooses the more work there is involved. After
allowing for restricted ecological types of plants, each species has
to be accounted for 57 times in the records and on the lists of
wanted plants; these lists alone meant writing out an average of
350 species for each square. The recording involves making up
a map for each plant, schedules showing the species recorded by
10 km. squares and a card index where the less common plants
are recorded by parishes.
I am greatly indebted to Dr. A. Adams and Mr. A. G. Jones
for helping me with this work.
In 1962 there were 55 squares visited, the two not covered were
Southend 88 and Shoebury 99, from where no lists were returned.
The increase in the number of records is very gratifying and the
comparative figures are as follows : —
No. of Avge. per
Year Species Total Records Increase Square
1960 1145 (1237) 18,176 — 319
1961 1166 (1257) 22,550 4,374 (24%) 397
1962 1180 (1271) 25,735 3,185 (14%) 451
(The figures in brackets include the aliens, garden escapes and varietal
forms, etc.)
There are 152 species occurring in one square only and 67
species found in every square. The distribution pattern of the
1,271 species by squares is as follows : —