Cornish Biodiversity Network - Supporting Wildlife Recording
The descriptive text, below the map, is from the Cornish Red Data Book (2009). The map on this web page depicts the organisms distribution and shows the records made pre-2000 and those made since.
Possibly native (Stace, 1991); an annual that has been recorded in east & west Cornwall and south Devon, and in south-west Europe.
Regional Distribution
Very local and rare, often occurring as a casual, it has been noted in 24 1km. squares since the first record in 1848. It has undergone a dramatic decline and persists at only three railway sites.
Habitat & Ecology
Dry sandy or gravelly open ground, often by railway lines, growing with such plants as Silver Hair-grass Aira caryophyllea , Common Centaury Centaurium erythraea , Common Bird's-foot-trefoil Lotus corniculatus and Rat's-tail Fescue Vulpia myuros .
Threats
Very threatened by the loss of open habitat, tidying up of marginal habitats by weed-spraying, changes in land use and building development.
Conservation
None.
I.J. Bennallick, S. Board, C.N. French, P.A. Gainey, C. Neil, R. Parslow, A. Spalding and P.E. Tompsett. eds. 2009. Red Data Book for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. 2nd Edition.Croceago Press.
The Cornish Red Data Book Project was led by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Federation for Biological Recorders (CISFBR). The full text and species accounts (minus the maps) are available on the CISFBR website.