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their taxonomic groups. Progress on this has been very good so far (for which great
thanks go to the Recorders - see President's Page) and by April 1999 it is hoped that draft
lists will be available for all groups. English Nature is then hoping to have a small
amount of funding to allow all the separate lists to be pulled together onto a large
database which can be put out for wider consultation during 1999/2000.
This Essex list will be used to decide which additional species should be targeted for
Biodiversity Action Plans and which might be useful for monitoring the state of health of
the Action Plan habitats. Furthermore, it is hoped that the Field Club's way of maiking the
new millenium might be to produce an Essex Red Data book that could be an important
source of reference to conservationists and naturalists for years to come.
Clearly, the Essex Biodiversity Action Plan provides a very important opportunity for the
Essex Field Club to have a strong influence on conservation in the county. In addition to
the production of the Red Data list there is much that members will be able to contribute
in the future. Each species and habitat action plan contains lots of possibilities for survey,
monitoring and direct conservation effort; a lot of volunteers will be needed for surveys,
such as a new Great Nut Hunt for Dormice and surveys of farmland for arable weeds,
butterflies, and birds. There should be a lot more about the Biodiversity Action Plan and
what you can do to help in future Newsletters and Naturalists; so watch this space!
Dr Jes Dagley
General Secretary
Plant Galls
It has been suggested that perhaps I might write a few lines on plant galls. Some members
will remember a talk given at Chelmsford last year by Jerry Bowdrey, I cannot compete
with his erudition, but my own thoughts might encourage others.
I came into plant galls because I understood that Will Plant was trying hard to get a study
society going. I determined to support the society marginally, not really my cup of tea, I
was then a spiderman, I thought! However, a course at Preston Ponteford Field Centre
opened my eyes, other people were KEEN (isn't keenness infectious?). Any natural
history subject that has few adherents interests me, and plant galls do stand still.
It is possible to find galls at most times of the year, and a knowledge of botany to some
extent is a help. No use looking at a fallen leaf and thinking that the pustules on it are
Hartigiola annulipes (occurs on Beech) if the leaf is of Alder, when the pustule might be
Eriophyes axillare. As the galls are the result of a causative organism affecting the
normal growth of a plant, and most plants in our islands are most active between March
and September (give or take a few days) galls are fresh and easier to find between May to
September.
Not all galls are large and obvious like knopper galls on oak or the bladder-like swelling
of the stems of thistle (caused by a fly) - take such a bladder home and let the flies breed
out, a container with damp sand in the bottom should do the trick, then wait for the
comments from the lady of the house! Some are quite small and you have to search for
them, like the tiny oval, smooth swelling along the main vein of some oak leaves,
Andricus anthracina, the Oyster gall. But most of you will be used to searching for small
things, butterfly eggs, spiderlings, lichen and moss plants for example.
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 28, February 1999