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Aconitum napellus L. Monkshood
Essex Status: Garden Escape.
Although Monkshood is considered to be native in wet woodlands in the south west of England,
the only recorded occurrences in Essex are as garden escapes, a decreasing phenomenon, as it is no
longer a popular garden plant.
Ajuga chamaepitys (L.) Schreber Ground Pine or Yellow Bugle
Essex Status: Probably Extinct Native.
Ground Pine is at the northern limit of its range in Britain, where it occurs in disturbed open chalk
habitats in arable fields that escape vigorous weed control or in rabbit grazed grassland. It has only
ever been found in 42 of our British hectads, and its range has been reduced to 20 squares post
1970. In Essex it has only ever been recorded from the Purfleet area, where it was seen in
cornfields in 1791 by Edward Forster; and 'near the same place', an undated record, by Jacob
Rayer (Gibson. 1862). Looking at the map, the only suitable outcrop of chalk in the Purfleet area
occurs in the monads TQ55.78 east to 58,78. Although still found in the same hectad. in tetrad
TQ57R in Kent, just across the Thames, virtually all the Essex chalk around Purfleet is now either
built on, or excavated as chalk pits and quarries, and it seems very unlikely that Ground Pine is still
present in Essex. A Purfleet plant, gathered by Edward Forster in 1791, was used for the illustration
in English Botany (Smith & Sowcrbury).
Allium oleraceum L. Field Garlic
Essex Status: Native or long established Alien.
Although widespread, the Field Garlic appears to be rapidly decreasing in Britain, but may simply
have been overlooked in recent years, as it is a difficult species to spot, except early in the season,
when its rapid growth, light green colour and pair of long, floppy, green spathes, quite different
from Crow Garlic (Allium vineale), cause it to stand out above the grassy swards that later on
envelop it. It is a perennial that curiously occurs in
two widely differing habitats viz: in dry, south-facing grassy (usually calcareous) sites subject to
summer drought and mainly in the north, in riparian habitats, either on sandy river banks or in
flood plain meadows (Stace & Dixon, in Stewart et al, 1994). It has been recorded in 292 hectads
in total, ever, but in only 112 since 1970. In eastern England it is only now known from 8 hectads
post 1970, 5 of them in Essex. The best place to see it locally is on Benfleet Downs, where at least
1,000 plants stand out above the grassy sward in late June/ early July, at the bottom of a low bank
at the top of the first large expanse of grass eastwards from the western end of the downs.
Essex Records:
TL(52)53 54.38 19 .Saffron Walden, hedgebank nr. Fairy Croft, c.1862, Joshua Clarke,
(Gibson, 1862).
502,352 19 .Wendens Ambo, small patch, south-facing chalk bank by lane,
30 July 1982. Joan Mummery.
53.39 19 .Saffron Walden. The Vinyard, in meadow. 1971. Stanley T.
Jermyn.
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 16 (1999)