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Wild Flower Finder

This UK Wild Flower Finder is searchable by colour, month, habitat, number of petals, flower symmetry and includes 1000's of clear photographs. Plus structural formulae of hundreds of plant compounds: dyes, herbs, poisons, pharmaceuticals, smells, etc. Make sure you stretch the site out horizontally such that you can see the fourth column entitled 'SUBJECT INDEX'. If the site is too wide to fit on your screen, an alternative is to invoke the 'scale view' option present on all good web-browsers, and adjust it to something less than 100%. If not, there is another alternative (although not as easy to use) pull-out Subject Index that you can invoke; it is to be found near the foot of the APP(endix) which can be instigated via the button at the top of the second-column super-selector. A sub-set of the Wild Flower Finder website can be run on a PDA's narrow screen just by using the SEARCH function. This is an extremely powerful search function especially suited to searching and helping identify wild flowers in the field on narrower screens. The wild flowers which are presented on these pages are growing daily in number due to liberal watering. All photographs shown with the credit ©RWD are copyright the author, R.W. Darlington. All photographs by other contributors are credited with their name and copyright symbol under the photograph in question, plus a personal profile on the contributors page. Anyone can contribute wild flower photographs. Please show me all the widgets that I can click upon [POP] FOREWORD by : The Author Many naturalists seem to be over-concerned about whether or not a 'British wild flower' really is wild and native to this country or was introduced by humans and naturalised. What they often fail to recognise is that many of what they think are true British wild flowers could (and probably were) introduced by man in the past, sometimes in the very far and distant past. Before the ice age, which ended only 12,000 years ago, Britain had as many wild flowers as did Continental Europe. The ice age affected Britain more that Continental Europe; the British glaciers scoured the native land bare of nearly all the wild flowers and other plants. After the ice age, only about a third as many of the 'once native?' wild flowers returned to Britain (or were re-awakened after 160,000 years dormancy in the soil, for that is how long the last ice-age lasted). [It should be noted that some seeds don't even last 2 years dormancy in the soil, and any that last as long as 160,000 years are indeed extremely resilient!] So why all the fuss about introduced plants? Plants have been introduced to Britain by mankind and other creatures for thousands of years; so long ago, in fact, that no one really knows which plants were really native or introduced by mankind. Of course, there have been many very recent and well documented non-native introductions to Britain. Kew gardens has a lot to answer for. They have introduced quite a few plants that are now classified as notoriously invasive weeds (er, sorry, there are no weeds, I mean wild flowers). Japanese Knotweed, once brought over to Wales for its highly praised form, threatens to destroy all other plants in Britain. It is now illegal to grow it intentionally; pity it wasn't so before someone imported it. Japanese Knotweed is virtually in-eradicable, its roots can extend to two metres below ground, and its underground stolons spread up to 7 metres underground, to appear in next doors garden. And, if dug up, just a one inch length of any part of the plant that is missed will re-generate. [It can now be treated by cutting the stem off a foot above ground level, slicing downwards through the stem to the root, and then injecting it with a herbicide, but this treatment needs repeating every year for 10 years, and is very labour-intensive. (In the UK all Japanese Knotweed is female, and does not reproduce sexually, but only by vegetative propagation. That does not seem to have hampered its spread; how much faster could it spread if it were sexually active?). An alternative approach to controlling it is to subject the Japenese Knotweed 'forests' to an infestation of special insects that eat only Japanese Knotweed. However, this method still needs approval from the authorities on the release of the non-native and jumping plant lice, aphalara itadori, a Japanese psyllid, into the environment: still pending. These sorts of non-native introductions have always previously led to even greater environmental disasters in unforeseen ways. Such biological interventions often fail miserably to take a holistic view of the whole ecosystem. The old song 'She swallowed the Spider to catch the Fly' springs to mind in this situation]. Trials will establish whether this lice can be safely released into the UK environment to control Japanese Knotweed. But according to BSBI distribution maps, it is already in retreat, occupying fewer hectads than it did the previous decade. Compare the BSBI distribution of Japanese Knotweed 1987-1999 with that of Japanese Knotweed 2000-2009, although the difference could just be an artefact caused by the possible under-reporting of a boring, ubiquitous well-known plant. [By the same, but inverse token, rare plants might be over-reported]. The author wonders who brought bracken into the country, for the way it is now spreading, can it really have been here once before? That too threatens to 'destroy' much of upland Britain. But what do we mean by destroy: upland Britain is not the same now as it was before the massive deforestation of Britain for firewood by our forebears. So, who cares if a plant is recently introduced or is an ancient relic or is possibly truly native to Britain (whatever that may mean)? Astrantia is a nice flower to look at. It was naturalised in Britain as a garden escape relatively recently. But was it one of the European plants that was actually here before the last ice-age but failed to re-colonize Britain naturally after the ice-age? Could the naturalists who make such distinctions between native and introduced species please clarify. Who is to say which flowers are native and which are not? And does it matter? *** ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The fact is, with or without human intervention, all lands change over time. With human intervention, it is possible to maintain a land in its present state against the forces of changing environmental factors around it, such as to ultimately preserve the land in a state which is very far from its normal equilibrium, or at least for a short while. But lose the human intervention factor and the land will quickly revert back to its preferred state, possibly via a number of intermediate steps as various plants vie for domination. But although it may eventually settle into a state that it was in originally, it may just as likely find a new state that it prefers over the original, and settle in that state: the ball at the summit of the mountain may roll into a different valley. Such are the consequences of taking a land far from equilibrium. That which was fertile could become desert. Once a land is taken out of equilibrium, other factors can come into play, such as increased rainfall, or increased updraught winds leading to erosion or deposition, which can change the character of the top-soil. If that happens, reversion to its original state could be impossible for millennia. As global warming takes hold, the temperate regions will warm up, but the polar regions could get much cooler. This increased temperature differential with latitude is already leading to an increase in wind speeds, as normal meteorological effects try unsuccessfully to restore the ever increasing temperature differential. The consequences for British plants are, that as Britain gets warmer, the plants migrate northwards through the different land regions. This may sound fine; for they have over a thousand miles to travel from Lands End to John o Groats before they run like lemmings into the North Sea. But all regions from South to North are not the same. There are isolated Limestone regions and isolated peat-bog upland reaches, for instance, with each region supplying the needs of particular plant species. Any particular plant specific to one region could find itself pushed into an incompatible region, and thus die off altogether, or be forced, by natural selection, to change into something that can survive the new conditions. But, all this and much more has happened many times before in the vast ages of the Earth, and all without human intervention. It is mankind that is now taking the Earth far from equilibrium. If pushed too far, the Earth itself could suddenly switch to a new quite unwelcome state as did Venus. Britain is already changing, and there is virtually nothing that mankind can do about it. Earth is already committed to 150 years' worth of man-induced global warming even if the whole World stopped emitting man-made carbon dioxide tomorrow; such is the global residence time of atmospheric CO2. If we continue to release carbon dioxide at present rates, drastic change could come about much sooner. Against the forces of change, we can try to keep British lands in limbo, in their status quo states, but ultimately this can be disastrous as the land is taken very far from equilibrium, and it could eventually suddenly switch into new preferred states that may not be the state had we left well alone in the first place~ Change is upon us. All we can do is let nature take its own course. TEMPERATURE EFFECTS Recent research seems to indicate that, plants, on average, can spread at about 0.7km per year, but because of Global Warming, the advancement of the temperature northwards is progressing at a rate of 1.3km per year. That is, the climate, on average, is spreading northwards faster than the average plant can keep pace. Some will win out, others will be lost, unable to keep up with the advancing climate front. Those species (not just plants) closer to the equator, says Prof Thomas at York University, within the equatorial belt, are moving away from the heat at the greater rate of 1.75km per year, which has been going on for the last 40 years and is set to continue until at least the rest of this century. Shifts to higher altitudes, where it is also colder, occur at a rate of 12m per decade (2011) In England, it was reported in 2011, the comma butterfly has moved 220km Northwards from Central England to Edinburgh in just two decades to keep cool. they can also move upwards, however, they can only keep moving upwards until they reach the summit of a hill or mountain, where they can get no higher out of the heat. They then die or evolve. Other research indicates that in Southern UK regions, each one degree Centigrade of warming lengthens the growing season by about 3 weeks. It is half that for Northern regions, i.e. about a 10 days longer growing season. In the year 2000, the 30-year-average growing season (for Central UK regions), was 243 days. The 30-year average is increasing by approximately 1.7 days per year since AD 1980 and has increased by about 24 days over the last 30 years. The year to year variation is quite large, varying from about 190 days (about AD 1980) to 308 days (AD 2000). To some plants this means earlier flowering, delayed leaf fall, over-winter flowering, and near continuous growth of lawns (which stop growing when the temperature falls below 15C). To other plants it could mean two flowering seasons in the same year rather than just one. Above a certain temperature, which varies from species to species, the plant shuts down genetic machinery and stops growing. For plants growing wild in the UK, a typical shut-down temperature is 30C. Tropical plants will have a much higher shut-down temperature, arctic ones probably lower. Species also have a minimum temperature at which they will grow, which again varies from species to species. For 'lawn' grass (in the UK) it is 15C. Similar to the way that the liquid range of elements varies from element to element (gallium is liquid over a temperature range of 2174°C, whereas mercury only over 395°C, and water just 100°C) some species of plants will have a large range of temperatures over which they will grow, whilst other will have a much smaller range. GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY and EXTINCTION THREATS Out of an approximate 8.7 million total number of species on Earth (of which only a small fraction, about 13%, are known to science), there are 7.77 million species of animals, 611,000 species of fungi, 36,400 species of protozoa, 27,500 species of chromista and 298,000 plants. The 298,000 plants are split into, approximately: 259,000 Flowering Plants 1000 Conifers 13,000 Ferns and Horsetails 15,000 Mosses 10,000 Red & Green Algae [Fungi, of which there are an estimated 611,000, do not come under the plant moniker]. In the year 2010, it was estimated that 70% of all these plants are under extinction threat, being either critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable. This is over double the percentage of any other species such as birds (12% under extinction threat), or invertebrates (34% under extinction threat). In 2010, Kew Gardens predicted that up to 34% of the total world-wide number of plant species is under threat of extinction, primarily in rain forests. This seems to be half the estimated number as reported by others in the same year, 2010, but both are just estimates; no one really knows. The current extinction rate (of the Worlds whole biodiversity) is already somewhere between 100 fold to 1000 fold higher than the background rate of extinction, so we may already be witnessing the next mass extinction event. Indeed, it has been confirmed that we are in a mass extinction event; by 2100 10% of all species may be extinct (and major extinction events may last much longer than 100 years). In the UK, it was reported in 2011 that there has been a 97% reduction in the number of wildflower meadows over the last six decades, a tremendous decline. There are now a total of just 4 square miles of upland wildflower meadows left in the UK. Lowland meadows are in much the same predicament; there are now less than 10,000ha (25,000 acres) left according to Michael Way of Kew Gardens in 2011. PAST MASS EXTINCTIONS It is now thought that the Permian Mass extinction of 250 million years ago, where 95% of all plant species were wiped out, was caused by a fungus in the soil acting on plants and trees whose health had been severely compromised and weakened by vast volcanic eruptions of that era. The fungi, possibly belonging to the group of fungi called Rhizoctonia some species of which are still extant today, took advantage of plants so weakened by heat stress, drought and acidification brought on by the volcanic eruptions. Such an extinction scenario is unique; no other mass extinction can be found in the geological strata where a fungus was involved on such a global scale. It is thought at least plausible that the same thing could happen to plants under the extreme stress of global warming today. *** Note. Some authorities now recognise that there are varying degrees of Nativeness and use the following terms to differentiate between them: NATIVE. A Native plant is one which has been growing in the area without being introduced by man usually for many thousands of years. It includes naturally occurring hybrids even if those have only recently been discovered. ARCHEOPHYTE. An Archeophyte is an established plant believed to have been introduced by man before 1500 AD. NEOPHYTE. A Neophyte has been introduced and naturalised after 1500 AD. These dates being (approximately) linked to the date that Christopher Columbus returned to the UK, initiating the Columbian plant exchanges. That is, they are entirely arbitrary! CASUAL. A Casual alien is a plant which grows in an area without being planted but fails to establish itself in the wild for very long. 'WOOL ALIEN' refers not to an especially woolly alien version of a plant, but to an alien un-intentionally imported on wool (or presumably sheep too). The Authorities also have various types of NON-NATIVENESS: Formerly native (extinct as a native but present as introduced populations, commonly called re-introductions; these may be deliberate or accidental and may be genetically distinct from the original population). Native species with large addition from domestic or non-native stock. Spontaneous hybrid between native and introduced taxa. New species derived from a spontaneous hybrid in above category (eg as an allopolyploid). Introduction (introduction, not present as native in post-glacial period; this includes taxa that have spread naturally to Britain from introduced populations in Europe, eg Harlequin Ladybird (Harmonia axyridis)). Native or alien, probably or possibly introduced. Newly arrived (taxa with an unknown history that appear to have arrived since 1950 and from their subsequent behaviour seem likely to be introductions). Note that they still seem to have nothing to say about plants that were here before the Last Ice Age(!), which was approximately 12,000 years ago and which lasted for approximately 160,000 years (so we are really deliberating upon plants which were here before circum 170,000 AD). It is these that could be the true natives which failed to re-colonize the lands after the ice age. And what of the plants that were here before the last ice age but one, and the one before that, and the one before that... (???). It is obvious that the descriptions native and non-native are a relative terms only! This all paints a very confusing picture and is one in which the author is not going to take participate or differentiate between. Any reference to native/non-native within the text are merely a reflection of other people's interpretatition.

Rogers' Atomic Software

E-mail: rogerarm@freeuk.com