Scurvygrass in Lochinver: a correction
In our account of the New Year Plant Hunt in Lochinver on 31st December 2023 we reported the ‘tiny heart-shaped leaves’ of what we took to be ‘seedlings’ of scurvygrass Cochlearia officinalis along the foot of the roadside wall of the Church of Scotland (NC093225). That was a mistake. I had forgotten that the habitat is much more typical of its close relative Danish scurvygrass C. danica and, more important, that friend Andy Amphlett had in fact recorded that species from this very spot on 13th May 2018.
On 26th March I returned to the site (photo 1), and found the Danish scurvygrass coming into flower (photos 2-3). Not only were the leaves still tiny, but the flowers were just 5mm across (photo 4), one of the distinguishing features of C. danica. A pleasing, if tiny, addition to our local flora.
History
Danish scurvygrass has an interesting history in the British Isles. The first Atlas of the British Flora (1962) shows it as an almost exclusively coastal species, with a sparse scatter of records in Scotland (map, photo 5), including a couple on the north coast of Sutherland.
The New Atlas of the British & Irish Flora (2002) shows that its range had massively expanded in England (map, photo 6), where it had ‘spread rapidly on salt-treated roads’. The red dots indicate that it was at that time regarded as an ‘alien’ inland. Also mapped (in very pale blue) is the first Assynt record, from NC02, made in 1969; no further details are available.
The most recent Plant Atlas 2020 (2023) shows a considerable extension of its range in southern, central and eastern Scotland (map, photo 7), but still maps it as mainly coastal in the Highlands, with Andy’s record plotted for Lochinver (NC02).
Finally, why Danish scurvygrass? Presumably because the Swedish ‘father of botany’ Carl Linnaeus, who provided its modern scientific name in his Species Plantarum (1753), described it from material originating in Denmark.
Ian M. Evans
All photos by I.M.Evans