14
FLORA OF ESSEX BY JERMYN
It has been brought to my notice that remaindered copies of Stanley Jermyn's 1974 Flora
of Essex are available from C. Arden Bookseller, Radnor House, Church Street, Hay-on-
Wye, HR3 5DQ (telephone 0497-820471) for £7.50 plus post and packaging.
Editor
CORRECTION to Noak Bridge Higher Plant List in Newsletter No. 11
Delete Anthemis arvensis and insert Matricaria recutita
Tony Boniface
ADDITIONAL RECORDS FROM NOAK BRIDGE
On a further visit to the Noak Bridge site on the 15th August 1994 I recorded several
more bees and flies additional to the list published in the last Newsletter. Of particular
note was the Nationally Scarce (Notable B) Melitta tricincta, a bee with an obligate
association with the flowers of Red Bartsia from which the females collect pollen. Two
males were taken flying over the flowers of Red Bartsia by the side of the path at the
southern end of the site. At Grays Chalk Quarry, where there is a large population of both
Red Bartsia and the bee, males are frequent in August hawking over the flowers,
presumably in search of females.
In the last two years, I have found this bee to be fairly widespread at least in the south of
the county, where ever there is a good stand of Red Bartsia; Grays Chalk Quarry, Mill
Wood Pit (Thurrock), Ferry Fields (Tilbury), Hadleigh and Benfleet Downs, Wat Tyler
Country Park (Pitsea), Basildon Meadows, The Cliff (Burnham-on-Crouch) and
Woodham Fenn (South Woodham Ferrers).
Red Bartsia, a plant semi-parasitic on the roots of other plants, seems to prefer areas with
some degree of disturbance or at least where there is a proportion of bare ground,
probably necessary for its seedlings to establish themselves. At sites for this bee there
needs to be appropriate management to encourage a good population of the plant. In
particular, although scrub invasion needs to be avoided, mowing of grassland should not
take place at times which will remove the pollen and nectar sources for this and other
insects.
Hymenoptera Diptera (Hoverflies)
Halictus tumulorum Helophilus pendulus
Melitta tricincta Myathropa florea
Sphecodes ephippius Syritta pipiens
Peter Harvey