Wildf lowers make a bee-line for the North
‘Fragmented landscape’
ORCHIDS and other wildflowers normally found in warmer southern parts of the UK are moving north as temperatures rise, say researchers.
The UK Government-funded National Plant Monitoring Scheme examined data from 15,000 surveys by volunteer citizen scientists to show the impact of a warming world on the UK’s plants.
It found plants such as wild orchids are expanding their range northwards.
Bee orchids were not previously found in Scotland but volunteers have discovered the plants, mainly found in Cambridgeshire and whose flowers resemble a bee’s rear end, at several sites near Glasgow and Edinburgh. The study looked at 30 different habitats, from woodland and hedgerows to blanket bogs and streams.
Southern marsh-orchids, a tall plant found in damp grasslands, were once restricted to the southern half of the UK, but reports of them growing in the wild have now come from as far north as Newcastle.
Other specialist plants are moving outside their usual range, including mossy stonecrop, once only found in the New Forest and East Anglia, which is spreading to sandy habitats north of the Border.
Early meadow-grass was formerly only found on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, but has now been recorded in Fishguard, South-West Wales, as well as Rosslare in the Republic of Ireland, and central London. There are also concerns about the extinction risk to plants that have no further to go, for example Arctic and alpine species which cannot go further up mountains, such as Highland saxifrage.
The increased risk of drought due to climate change also puts many smaller, short-lived species at risk, with fairy flax, yellow-wort, soft brome and common mouse-ear suffering from heat and a lack of water in 2018’s drought.
The results from the monitoring scheme also indicate a rise in species able to cope with drought.
These include salad burnet, a dark crimson flower found in old hay meadows, which has a longer root so it can reach down to moist soil, and wild thyme, which manages water loss with tiny leaves.
Dr Trevor Dines, of conservation charity Plantlife, said experts had previously thought that it would ‘take an awful lot’ for plants to start moving northwards because their dispersal is slow.
‘To actually start seeing that now, coming through so strongly, is a real wake-up call,’ he added. ‘It proves to us that climate change is having a real impact.’
‘Our concern is that we live in such a fragmented landscape there aren’t the places for these plants to go. Any climate change that involves drought scenarios is going to affect plant populations much more quickly.’