STATUS, DISTRIBUTION
and IDENTIFICATION
Notes on Essex Specialities. 7:
the distribution of the Oxlip Primula elatior (L,) Hill in Essex
RAY TABOR
The Essex Wildlife Trust, Abbotts Hall Form, Great Wigborough, Colchester, Essex C05 7RZ
Abstract
The Oxlip is a nationally scarce plant that has played an important role in the flora of Essex. This
paper describes the results of a county-wide survey into the plant's current distribution, and discusses
how this has changed since the publication of Jermyn's Flora of Essex in 1974. The evidence from
the survey is that although the Oxlip's distribution in Essex remains similar to 1974, the number of
plants has declined significantly. Deer are shown to be the major cause of this decline, with shade in
neglected sites and the impact of planted conifers also having an effect.
Introduction
On the cover of the Flora of Essex is a painting of an Oxlip together with a map showing its unusual
distribution in the county. This is not fortuitous, for the Oxlip has always enjoyed a special position
amongst the flora of Essex. For generations it has been famed for its spectacular vernal display in
the woodlands of the north west of the county, where local residents still tell stories of the beauty of
the coppices they played in when young. Meanwhile, academics still ponder over the intriguing
problems posed by the Oxlip's ecology. Indeed the Oxlip may well become the county flower of
Essex in the campaign currently being run by the charity Plantlife.
But the Essex involvement with the Oxlip goes beyond living memory. Arguably it started when the
great Essex naturalist John Ray published the first records of the plant in 1660. Although his records
related to plants in Cambridgeshire rather than Essex, Ray must have known the plant in his home
county as a result of his frequent travels between Braintree and Cambridge that took him through
the heart of the Essex Oxlip zone. When, nearly 200 years later, there was a debate as to the true
status of the Oxlip as a species, it was Henry Doubleday, from Epping, who largely resolved the
issue with material he collected from meadows in the village of Great Bardfield. Miller Christy,
another famous Essex naturalist, gave us the first accounts of the pollination of the plant, and the
scale of its numbers in some woods, when he studied the coppices around Saffron Walden. And
finally Essex had the largest and most prolific Oxlip site in the country: Hempstead Wood was
identified as the country's premier Oxlip site in 1974 when a survey estimated its 71 hectares
contained three quarters of a million plants (Jermyn 1974, Rackham 1975). Recent losses of Oxlips
from Hempstead now means that Hayley Wood in Cambridgeshire may contain more plants.
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 19 (2002)
113