Southern orchids are found in north for first time
marsh
CLIMATE CHANGE could be enabling species of wildflower to grow much further north than their usual habitats.
A government-funded project, the National Plant Monitoring Scheme, has been running for the past five years. It assesses whether some species more typically found in the south of England have been establishing themselves in more northerly regions.
Around 15,000 surveys were submitted by volunteer ‘citizen scientists’ as part of the scheme, which monitored 30 types of wildflower.
Southern marsh orchids, a tall plant found in damp grasslands, was once restricted to the southern half of the UK but they have now spread to North Yorkshire and records have come in from as far north as Newcastle.
Bee orchids were not previously found in Scotland, but volunteers have discovered the
It proves to us that climate change is having a real impact.
Dr Trevor Dines, Plantlife’s botanical specialist
plants, whose flowers resemble a bee’s backside, at several sites around Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Nature blogger Richard Bell found bee orchids at Woolley Colliery nature reserve, near Wakefield, in 2015, and said he has never seen them in the area before.
Other specialist plants are moving outside their usual range, including mossy stonecrop, a succulent once only found in the New Forest and East Anglia, which is spreading to sandy habitats in Scotland.
Dr Trevor Dines, Plantlife’s botanical specialist, said experts had previously thought that it would “take an awful lot” for plants to start moving northwards because their dispersal is very slow.
“To actually start seeing that now, coming through so strongly, is a real wake-up call,” he said.
“It proves to us that climate change is having a real impact.”