Literally moments before the Pump Field was mown in August (Photo, right, during the drought…..remember?) SNHS members Jenni Empson-Ridler and Judy Pepper, together with Sarah McKenzie, a Botanist, were surveying the plant community when they came across a two foot high specimen of…what?
Theories range from Bristly Oxtongue to Hawkweed Oxtongue through hybrid specimens, but no one seems certain.
When we asked an expert Botanist he wrote “I’m inclined to think the flowers/fruit just might have been attacked by a gall, preventing ligulate Fl growth, though that’s a long shot. It would only become clear on pulling apart one of the heads.
The growth-form, open, quite widely forking (divaricate), the hair types, bracts and the solitary green leaf are all nearer to Picris hieracioides ( Hawkweed Oxtongue) than anything else I can think of.” There are lots of these plants at the Beach Garden on the seafront, especially amongst the Tamarisk bushes on the raised gardens.
Meanwhile the specimen has been transported to a local garden and leaves are developing. Perhaps identification will become clear next year. Any ideas from readers would be welcome.
Mike Vingoe.
The Seaford Naturalist by Seaford Natural History Society
