September can be a wet and windy month but not this one; it was much drier and warmer than usual. This meant a busy time for me, finishing off several field surveys, including a coastwide investigation into the ecology of Small-fruited Yellow-Sedge. I ended up with 44 colonies of this rather uncommon dune-slack specialist....
New taxon for Crosby Coastal Park
A small-flowered Evenint-primrose from a population found at Crosby Coastal Park was collected and sent to Rosemary Murphy, the national referee for Oenothera, earlier this year. Rosemary has now carried out a detailed examination of the plant material and has concluded that it is most likely the ‘triple hybrid’ Oenothera glazioviana x O. biennis x O.cambrica an identification which...
Dr Phil Smith: Wildlife Notes August 2016
A rather unremarkable month for weather, August had average rainfall and a couple of short warm spells but was largely characterised by cool windy conditions. My frequent visits to the dunes revealed a surprising lack of large insects, especially dragonflies and butterflies. Thus, after a gale the previous day, I called in at our premier...
Botanical interest of Crosby Coastal Park, Sefton Coast, Merseyside
Philip H. Smith, August 2016 Introduction Together with the adjacent Seaforth Docks complex (now Liverpool Free Port), Crosby Coastal Park was reclaimed from the Mersey Estuary in the late 1960s. The section studied here extends south from Crosby Baths to the Freeport fence (Fig. 1). It has an elongated triangular shape about 1.6km long with...
