enjoying a few good years and is deemed to be reaching 'plague' proportions. Remember
the famous Ladybird year of the 1970s. It was greeted with delight at first, until people
realised that these pretty little insects can bite! Then there was the huge immigration of the
hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus a few years later. The shelves in the local garden centre
were stripped on insecticide in a couple of days by people in a panic to destroy what they
considered to be 'wasps'. In the 1980s I recall reading that an invasion of Large White
butterflies from Europe that year was likely to lead to a shortage of cabbages in the shops
the following winter! And then, of course, there was the Brown-tailed Moth year, when
half the trees in Basildon were stripped of their foliage by the local authority less the
offending caterpillars drop from their communal webs and bring the populace out in a
rash. Sometimes you wish that there would be a plague of locusts one summer to give
people something really worthwhile to get upset about!
Even plants cannot escape this fate - not just species that are worthy of it such as
Rhododendron ponticum and Floating Marsh Pennywort Hydrococtyle ranunculoides
but innocent ones such as my favourite plant, Rubus fruticosa1. I have often heard its
name cursed by wardens of woodland reserves for its habit of rapidly colonizing coppiced
areas and smothering more desirable species but it is part of the natural succession after
all. I once spent a 'conservation weekend' helping to chop down a large area of bramble
alongside a stream in a wood owned by a conservation organisation that must for
diplomatic reasons remain nameless! A waste of time and a waste of energy as I have no
doubt that nine months later I'd have had no problem in picking a bowl of blackberries
for my tea! The latest species to be deemed undesirable is the humble Ragwort Senecio
jacobea. DEFRA have informed local authorities that it is poisonous to horses and
cattle and that the population in some areas is reaching 'plague' proportions. No matter
that Ragwort in pasture is a sure sign of over-grazing or neglect and that it is easy
enough to recognize and dig up there is now a moral crusade against the plant sweeping
the corridors of power and plans are afoot to eradicate it wherever it is to be found.
Hopefully this silliness will die down in a few years - as the Ragwort certainly won't;
nor should it as it is a superb plant for insects in late summer. During a recent visit to a
friend's private nature reserve at Southminster - on the slopes of a ridge between the
Rivers Crouch and Blackwater - I recorded seven species of hoverfly nectaring on a
single plant; to whit, Episyrphus balteatus, Platycheirus angustatus, Syrphus vitripennis,
Metasyrphus luniger, Scaeva pyrastri, Eristalis tenax and Syritta pipiens. The reserve
encompasses a small wood known as The Grove - one of several surviving copses along
this ridge - the only site on the Dengie peninsular (as far as I am aware) for Greater
Butterfly Orchid Platanthera chlorantha. There are also several acres of wild flower
meadow, dominated by Agrimony Agrimonia eupatoria and Ox Eye Daisy but also
including a thriving population of white flowered Common Centaury Centaurium
erythraea. Marbled Whites Melanargia galathea were introduced here from Canvey
Island several years ago and appear to be flourishing, up to twenty-five having been
seen on the wing this summer. Rod Larner has put in a lot of hard work on the site and
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Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 42, September 2003