Finally we come to the long trailing capillary-leaved species of our streams and rivers.
This group was a nightmare to botanists until their taxonomy was resolved by C D K
Cook in 1966, despite the elegant work on them by our eccentric Essex botanist Roger
Butcher (he would take his trousers off and wade in to collect a specimen!). In Essex we
have just two of these: Ranunculus fluitans (River W.c.) and Ranunculus penicellatus
subsp. pseudofluitans (Stream W.c). R. fluitans is very fussy about water quality, and
we only have records from the R. Cam, the Stort south of Sawbrideworth, and one
record from the Chelmer-Blackwater Canal. It needs some silt to root in and the water
needs to be base rich. R. penicellatus, on the other hand, is probably widespread but
overlooked in Essex. It is usually associated with shallow gravelly riffles, and 1 have
found it at several sites along the Roding from Passingford Bridge down to Redbridge.
It has been recorded from the R. Wid and the R. Ter, and Shirley Watson has found it in
the Stort at Farnham, Stansted and Lt. Hallingbury. It probably occurs widely elsewhere
in our shallower rivers.
R. fluitans has very long capillary segments to its submerged leaves, but they only fork
repeated up to four times, whereas those of if. penicellatus fork up to seven times or
more. Furthermore those of the former are firm, rubbery and translucent, like green
bottleglass; whereas those of the latter are flaccid and collapse on removal from the
water.
Please keep a look out for both of these species, as they have obviously been overlooked
in Essex, and let me have any records. They are best seen in flower at the end of May -
early June. For an illustrated key to the Water Crowfoots (and/or a new one on the
Potamogetons (Pondweeds) of eastern England, send me an A4 stamped/addressed
envelope.
Alternative-leaved Golden Saxifrage - extinct in Vcl8?
Ken Adams 63 Wroths Path, Baldwins Hill. Loughton. Essex. IG10 1SH
Can anybody throw some light on the Scrub Wood, Little Baddow, record for
Chrysosplenium alternifolium (Flora of Essex 1974)? Scrub Wood (as opposed to The
Scrubs) lies immediately north of the Heather Hills N.R. (= the Warren) on the Danbury -
Little Baddow ridge. A stream runs south to north across the lowest point of bothreserves.
Whereas the Heather Hills section of the stream is virtually bereft of vegetation, the
Scrub Wood section is un-trampled, and well vegetated, a series of Golden Saxifrage
colonies extending downstream until about halfway down, when the valley floor flattens
out into a wide marsh. This area is an enormous alluvial infill behind a natural fallen tree
dam some 6-8 ft high. In early spring it's a continuous spectacular carpet of golden
saxifrage, that gets massively overgrown in the summer. This year we checked out the
stream, and its tributary coming in from the eastern end of the wood, in April, before the
rest of the vegetation grew up. Despite careful searching, we only found the Opposite-
20 Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 49, January 2006