FORMER Skipton writer/photographer and botanist Howard Beck writes of his delight in discovering a rare plant in Clapham - the first of its type in the British Isles.

Howard is also a volunteer botanist with Natural England on the Ingleborough National Nature Reserve.

THE nineteenth of April 2019 was a day not unlike any other for a botanist abroad in the Dales. The usual Pennine weather prevailed. The warbling of the first curlews drifted on the air. And the Covid pandemic had yet to fall on Britain like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.

It was another day of field work gleaning records in the run-up to the publishing of a new national flora atlas of Great Britain. Under the auspices of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland such detailed nation-wide surveys take place approximately every two decades. They involve botanists - professional and amateur alike - tramping the length and breadth of the United Kingdom and Ireland, gathering and submitting records on vascular plant species, their numbers and their habitats.

Using such surveys the BSBI, and other organizations involved with conservation, are able to determine trends, for instance which species are spreading, which on the decline, show where environmental pressures are likely to become problematic and which species are under the greatest threat. Such work now takes on a greater significance than ever in the face of increasing social demands, habitat loss and changes wrought by global warming.

My early spring day was drawing to a satisfying close. I had garnered what I considered a respectable collection of observations for a single outing, doing my bit for citizen science as it were. However during the drive home on the A65 I decided on a whim to dip into the leafy milieu that is Clapham and see what might reveal itself.

I have known the village over 50 years, grown familiar with its walled lanes, the church and waterfall and its picturesque beck and bridges. I was aware that on its west and southwest sides the main car park is defined by a margin of unkempt ground - dominated by nettles and brambles, but little else - that separated it from the footpath I have often taken to the neighbouring village of Austwick.

On this memorable occasion I came upon an untidy patch of floppy leaves I was unable to recognize. It was intriguing as these matters often are. It was another three months before identification of the plants finally was forthcoming, when another BSBI botanist found more of the same plants elsewhere in the village. By this time it was mid-summer and the plants were mature and in full bloom. After the on-line Manual of the Alien Plants of Belgium had been consulted the plants were finally determined to be the Blue Sow-thistle (Cicerbita macrophylla subspecies macrophylla).

I returned to the mystery leaves I had found earlier and could see immediately that ‘my’ plants were indeed identical - thus catapulting the April discovery to the fore as a completely new find for Britain! I could hardly believe my luck. It is always exciting recording a species new to an area or region, but to find a plant never before seen anywhere else in the British Isles was quite a thrill. For me this made the April find that bit more special, vindicating all the leg work over many months.

The cicerbita genus belongs to the Asteraceae (composites) family of vascular plants, which include thistles, oxeye daisy (dog daisy to many readers), the common daisy, ragworts, dandelions and the sunflower.

The Clapham plants are significantly different to the Blue Sow-thistle more usually found (subspecies uralensis) throughout Britain. Subspecies macrophylla has a far more sturdy growth pattern. It can reach three metres tall, the basal leaves have ludicrously large terminal lobes, and the inflorescence (area of the stem bearing the flower heads) is dense with glandular (sticky) hairs. Overall a much more statuesque and impressive plant.

These find naturally beg questions as to provenance. Subspecies macrophylla is a perennial native to Turkey, the Caucasus and Iran, so how does it come to be thriving in our area? Perhaps the plants’ presence is not so surprising if one considers that Clapham’s Ingleborough Hall was home to the famous nineteenth century botanist and international plant collector, Reginald Farrer (1880 – 1920).

Farrer travelled Asia and the Orient extensively collecting, returning to his home with all manner of exotic specimens for his private collections. Many of the species in the Ingleborough grounds: bamboos, giant butterbur and gunnera, for instance, are some of his introductions. Did he bring back Blue Sow-thistle from one of his expeditions? Did it escape years ago from his private garden and establish itself in the wild?

A conversation with Philip Farrer, revealed that the village car park beside which I first found the plants was once occupied by the Ingleborough Hall greenhouses, lending additional weight to the theory that the cicerbita was brought to the UK by Reginald. What is fact, is that Clapham is now firmly placed on the botanical map as the repository for a species so far unknown anywhere else in the British Isles.

Howard Beck is a member of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, and a volunteer botanist with Natural England on the Ingleborough National Nature Reserve. He is also author of the beginners’ field guide Wild Flowers of Yorkshire, published by Crowood Press, 2010. He may be contacted at: infinite_blue123@proton.me