practice is unsustainable for small colonies and recently this species has received special
protection making it unlawful to take, keep or even disturb them.
One rather intriguing aspect of the colony is how they have come to be there in the first
place. The general habitat appears to be well suited to snails with good numbers of some
of the larger common species present. Roman snails arc considered to be poor colonisers
being slow to spread, but have been kept as pets and the colony may have originated as
a more recent introduction in this way.
As Simon has pointed out after visiting the site, it is amazing that such a large snail, the
largest naturally occurring species in the UK can go undiscovered and that a previously
unknown colony can turn up.
Although there are a number of potential origins for this colony, with a modern
introduction impossible to rule out, it would be nice to consider the possibility that there
is a small population of Roman snails which have been quietly living in Essex for
thousands of years and have survived, if not completely unnoticed by the people who
have come and gone through the centuries, they have at least been largely ignored!
Botanical Records - problems and solutions (Part 2)
Ken Adams 63 Wroth's Path, Baldwins Hill. Loughton. Essex 1G10 1SH
Sorry for the delay - I did promise this supplement for the last newsletter! Before we
launch into books on tree identification, a few more books on other groups of flowering
plants. In mentioning Flora of the British Isles by Clapham, Tutin & Warburg. CUR I
omitted reference to the large format Flora of the British Isles (CTW) Illustrations in
4 vols: drawn by Sybil J Roles. CUP, 1965. Although long out of print it's worth looking
out for in second-hand bookshops. Unlike Stella Ross-Craig's illustrations it does include
the grasses and sedges. The drawings at four to a page are rather small but as habit
drawings they are very useful. Other books I failed to mention are Alien Plants of the
British Isles, Clement & Foster. BSBI, 1994. This does not have illustrations,
descriptions or keys but it lists all the alien plants that have reliably been recorded 'wild'
in the British Isles giving a good clue to what extra species one is likely to come across,
and it has a large compendium of sources of descriptions and illustrations of alien plants.
It covers all but the grasses which are dealt with separately in Alien Grasses of the
British Isles, Ryves, Clement & Foster. BSBI, 1986. In similar format but with the very
valuable addition not even mentioned on the cover (why are artists regarded as the
lowest of the low?) of line illustrations of no less than 143 taxa of grasses by Graham
Easy. There are also keys to Bambuseae, Stipa, Poa, Agrostis, Polypogon, Eragrostis,
Sporobolus, Panicum and Digitaria which incorporate our native as well as alien taxa.
Another group I did not mention specifically, the aquatic flowering plants is dealt with
in Aquatic Plants in Britain & Ireland, Preston & Croft. Harley Books, 1987, illustrated
12
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 57, September 2008