The woodland flora of the Forest of Writtle and surrounding area
Lophocolea bidentata var. rivularis: Formerly known as L. bidentata but no longer given variant
status. Common on wet soil throughout the main Forest.
Lophocolea heterophylla: Abundant on damp, shaded tree bark and rotting wood generally throughout
Ihe survey area.
Frullania dilatata: A bark dwelling species that was found in South Wood in April 2002 by Tim Pyner.
Metzgeriales
Pellia epiphylla: Plentiful in a small Sphagnum bog and adjacent stream in Birch Spring and also in
The Mores; occasional in similar habitats outside woodland. Has probably declined due to the drying
out of many former marshy sites in the acidic woodland of the main Forest.
Pellia endiviifolia: Recorded from South Wood by Tim Pyner in April 2002. Probably widespread on
the chalky boulder-clay.
Riccardia multifida: This species is recorded in Adams (1974) as having been found on a roadside
verge at High Woods, Margaretting in 1962 by Eric Saunders. The two place names are contradictory,
as they refer to different parishes, but the former seems the most likely site.
Metzgeria furcata: An inhabitant of tree bark that was found in South Wood in April 2002 by Tim
Pyner.
Marchantiales
Marchantia polymorpha: Recorded from Coptfold Woods in 1958 by A.J. Pettifer and from a recently
coppiced area in Deerslade Wood in April 2003.
Riccia glauca: This tiny, rosette-forming liverwort is an inhabitant of damp stubble fields and other
open habitats but was found on wet soil in an open area of The Grove in March 2001.
Conclusion
While walking across the fields near Handley Barns a few weeks ago I struck up a conversation
with a fellow who was plodding slowly back and forth across a large acreage of stubble, scanning
the ground with a metal detector. "What have you found" I asked facetiously, "a few old rusty nails
and some ring-pulls from coca-cola cans?" Not exactly. What he had found included a tiny, much-
eroded Roman coin; a King Edward II silver penny; a George III penny; several buckles, some of
which he thought dated back to Tudor times; a number of heavy, ball-shaped weights that were
used to take up the slack on a horse harness when ploughing; and, from a more recent era, a handful
of spent anti-aircraft cannon shells. The silver penny was as new, a sliver of pressed metal that had
somehow survived seven hundred years of repeated ploughing, harrowing, sowing and harvesting
of the field in which it lay. It would be a dull mind indeed which did not ponder on who its owner
might have been. One imagines that a silver penny would have been a Gentleman's coin. Or a
Gentlewoman's. The local squire perhaps? Or maybe a steward working for Barking Abbey, who
owned the land at that time. Not so. The penny was the smallest coin in the 14th century - although
it could be cut into four - and a skilled labourer could earn at least two pence a day (Rackham
2003). Thus it could have belonged to a yokel, like me! As a botanist I would love to know what
plants were growing in the stubble when the coin slipped from the owner's pocket. The imagination
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Essex Naturalist (New Series) 20 (2003)