166 The Scarce Plants of Essex. Part 2.
Crambe maritima
Crassula tillaea Lester-Garl (= Tillaea muscosa) Mossy Stonecrop
Status in Essex: Native, single site, 'new Essex plant'.
This small sized, generally prostrate succulent, is restricted to bare compacted sites on slightly acid,
sandy soils. Although often difficult to spot, its yellow-green colour blending with the sand, in summer
anthocyanins turn it a vivid red, the best time to assess the extent of a colony. It has a curious British
distribution with two main foci, centring on South Hampshire and Dorset, and Norfolk and Suffolk. It
was found new to Essex by Tem Tarpey in 1995, on the floor of a gravel pit at Alphamstone, only a few
miles west of its site on the gravel entrance track to Playford Heath in Suffolk.
TL(52)83 872,353-5 19 Alphamstone Gravel Pits, c.30m2 patch on floor of pit.
29 May 1995. Terri Tarpey,
ditto. 1,000+ plants 11 May 1997. J P Tyler.
Cuscuta europaea L. Greater dodder
Status in Essex: Native, 'new Essex plant'
A rare aerial, annual parasite, in itially of either the common nettle Urtica dioica, or less commonly the
Wild Hop Humulus lupulus. - but once established capable of forming haustoria on a wide range of
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 17 (2000)