14
HARTWORT - THE GOOD AND THE BAD NEWS.
At last! It has finally been agreed that Tordylium maximum, the Hartwort is to receive
Red Data Book status in the next revision.
Known in Britain since 1670 it has been found at scattered sites along the Thames valley
since then, and could well be a native plant, as it occurs just over the channel in France.
In Essex its locus classicus was on a roadverge just north of Tilbury Fort, where it has
survived remarkable predation by Botanists collecting plants for herbarium specimens
ever since its discovery in 1875. In 1949 a further colony was discovered on Benfleet
Downs, and in 1966 a third colony was found near Benfleet Sewage Works.
Now for the bad news! In 1984 Colin Plant and Sarah Lambert just happened to be down
at Tilbury to check on the abundance of the plant, when they discovered that a pipeline
was being laid right along the road verge directly in line with the Tordylium plants, and
they were all being uprooted and cast aside in the process. Colin tried to stop the
operations by appealing to officials at the Fort, but to no avail, and so in desperation
rescued seven plants and took them back to the East Ham Nature Reserve.
Unfortunately these plants died after two years.
When Tim Pyner visited the Tilbury site in 1993 no plants were to be seen. When I visited
this location in early July 1994,1 discovered that the site of the main original patch now
lay beneath a huge pile of concrete blocks and rubble and the rest
of the verge on which it grew had been plastered with the dredgings from one of the
dykes of the Fort's moated defences. It would appear that English Heritage is attempting
to give the area a 'face lift'. Hopefully we can indulge eventually hi a management
agreement and reseed the verge from the other main colony on Benfleet Downs.
Ken Adams
BEAN BROOMRAPE BACK AT CRANHAM
As many of you will be aware, way back in 1975 I discovered a large colony of the
magnificent broomrape Orobanche crenata, parasitising a patch of Vicia tetrasperma just
outside the then proposed Cranham Marsh Reserve. By stretching the boundary we
managed to get the site included in the newly designated reserve, and I spent a whole day
on site singlehandedly clearing invading aspen. Unfortunately the ENT as it then was, did
not keep the site clear and the broomrape colony was lost as from about 1983.
Apart from a further sighting in a pea field about a mile away in 1986, that appeared to be
its swansong. You can imagine how delighted we were to hear from Tony Dunton that a
single plant had reappeared on the margin of a rape field only yards from the
original colony, the site of which, incidentally, Tony had put a lot of effort into clearing in
faithful anticipation! The seed from this one plant has been scattered on a patch of its
former host and we are keeping our fingers crossed!
This is the first time that O. crenata has firmly established itself in Britain, although it
occurs sporadically in Broad Bean crops. We believe that it became established at
Cranham prior to 1950, as plants were recorded in gardens nearby in Upminster in
1950, 1951 and 1975. Unlike the other broomrapes it is scented (of carnations) and
probably insect rather than wind pollinated, and normally more at home in Spain or
elsewhere around the Mediterranean. Perhaps its the first local evidence of the effects of
global warming!
Ken Adams