Format of the expanded species accounts

The book The Flora of County Fermanagh was published in November 2012 in a print run of just 750 copies which quickly sold out. It presented an account of all the vascular plants (flowering plants, ferns and fern allies) that are known to have been recorded in Co Fermanagh at any time up until 31 December 2010. This webpage is based on the published book species accounts together with selected records thereafter. The total number of taxa (ie species, subspecies, varieties, species aggregates, microspecies and hybrids) dealt with in the book was 1216. The species accounts presented here are a greatly expanded version of those that appeared in the book and were written with the intention of providing a comprehensive autecological review based on my personal library and scientific papers I had assembled when I lectured in the Queen's University of Belfast Institute of Continuing Education and in the 12 years following my retirement.

I wrote the following accounts (identifiying myself in the text as "the current author (RSF)"), and they express my opinions, although on matters involving Fermanagh records where I had any substantial degree of doubt, I consulted my friend and colleague and the main field recorder of the county, Robert Northridge, for his view. Any errors or misjudgements that occur in the following accounts, however, are entirely mine, and I will be glad to listen to any argument and accept any correction that can be proven.

The species accounts include a small number of instances where Robert and I have doubts regarding the accuracy of the local record(s) and suspect mis-identification. We have included these as perhaps we may be in error rather than the recorder in the field. In a very few cases where we were certain an identification error had been made, the records were discarded and no mention appears.

It is normal in botanical circles for records of rare species to be supported by a voucher specimen, either a preserved pressed and dried herbarium item, or a fresh specimen, or a photograph showing the determining features. We have noted with dismay a tendency in recent years for field recorders carrying out botanical survey work for public bodies, to neglect collecting the voucher specimens required to verify their determinations. I hope that by drawing attention to this regrettable neglect, the situation will be remedied in future. We can do nothing about the practice in the past, but some records have had to be discarded as unsound, and Robert Northridge and I as BSBI VC recorders for H33 (Fermangh), are very keen that this should not happen again. In other cases where we are more confident of the recorders' ability the records are taken to be valid, although we would still be happier with a proper voucher for the rarer species.

The scientific name, English common name and systematic classification order in this Flora follow Stace (1997), the second edition of the standard New Flora of the British Isles. The authority for the scientific name follows Stace (1997) for all but the critical genera Taraxacum and Dactylorhiza.

In my experience many published Floras attempt to save space by using off-putting letter or number codes for various taxon properties such as status (eg N for native, C for colonist and so on), or complicated grid codes for particular map squares, or excessive use of unfamiliar place-names. These are features that in my view obscure the main botanical message and kill enthusiasm. Nothing could be more off-putting and less helpful to the reader, and I have avoided any such practice, even at the cost of additional space and weight of paper. My approach has been to do my best to make the species accounts varied, stimulating reading, covering areas of botanical interest in biology, history, ecology, cultural uses and tradition.

I have tried to imagine that I am writing for my adult, university extra-mural students: highly intelligent, interested people, motivated to learn, but with no formal botanical or indeed in many instances, any scientific training. Originally I tried to avoid using botanical terminology, but the resulting text became repetitive and long-winded, and I was obliged to abandon the attempt. I am sure that most readers have access to a good general dictionary, a botanical dictionary, or a computer, and this obviates the need for a glossary.

Anyone reading more than one of the following species accounts will quite quickly realise that they have evolved as the sequence continued. I do hope that they have improved as I continued to work on my self-imposed task year after year. Change was inevitable as the researching and writing process has taken more than two decades to reach the end of the Dicots, which is where I decided that I'd like to stop. I want to get more time outdoors in the fresh air and I need to exercise for the good of my health. I do have other files on the Monocots, but I am not intending to work on them. My hope is that someone else, or some group somewhere, perhaps within the BSBI, will decide to extend the manner and style of my approach to botanical study and complete the autecological review of the whole of the British and Irish flora.

The species header information

A typical example of a species header is shown below, which I hope may make clearer the type of information that this part of each species account includes: 

Lycopodium clavatum L., Stag's-horn Clubmoss

Native, very rare. Circumpolar boreo-temperate.
1905; Colgan, N.; Altscraghy, on Cuilcagh slopes.
Throughout the year.

The header for each species gives the scientific name, the authority and the English common name in bold type. This is followed on the next line by the generally accepted status of the plant in Ireland (native or introduced). However, the status of a taxon is often far from definite and it may vary across the island. Fermanagh being on the north-west rural margin of the island, and the county lacking a port, casts a quite different complexion on this topic in comparison with the majority of Irish counties, especially those on the east coast with ports in them or nearby. I have generally taken a conservative, but sometimes sceptical approach to the perceived Irish status, which may then be described as assumed native, probably native, possibly native or doubtfully native. If we have sufficient evidence to determine it, an introduced non-native alien plant is described as either an archaeophyte (ie an introduction which became established before 1500 AD), or a neophyte (introduced after 1500 AD). Again this is applied in an Irish (not a British) context.

Status is followed by a concise description of local frequency and distribution based on information in our flora database (the Fermanagh Flora Database), eg, Occasional, thinly scattered in the lowlands.

Starting on the same line of the header as the status and local occurrence is the geographic floristic element of the taxon, a phrase that summarily describes the world distribution following the listing produced by Preston and Hill (1997). Whenever necessary this is amplified to include an indication of areas of the world where the plant is naturalised. Evidence for the latter was mainly obtained from the Atlas of north European vascular plants north of the Tropic of Cancer (Hultén & Fries 1986), but also from relevant published Floras, especially those of New Zealand and North America, plus sites on the internet.

The next line of the header gives the details of the first record of the plant in the Fermanagh Flora Database. This is presented in the format: date; name of recorder; and site. Unfortunately, many of the first records made at the end of the 19th century by S.A. Stewart and R.Ll. Praeger do not give any detail of locality other than the county. At that time, Irish botanical recording, as described in both editions of Cybele Hibernica, was based on a series of twelve districts, Co Fermanagh being part of District X (ten) along with Cos Cavan, Monaghan, Tyrone and Armagh (Moore & More 1866; Colgan & Scully 1898). It was not until Praeger's Irish Topographical Botany appeared in 1901 that we began to have records and sites within counties listed by individual county or vice-county, Fermanagh being given the code number H33.

The first record is followed on the next line by the months in which the species has been recorded in Fermanagh. Please note that it is not the phenology in terms of the flowering period, which is frequently given in other Floras.

In the published Flora there were three colour washes used behind the species header, duck-egg green, lilac and pink. These relate to whether the species is mapped in the Flora (duck-egg), or too common to map, ie recorded in over 50% of tetrad squares in the VC (lilac), or too rare to map - recorded in less than five tetrads (pink). Thus with respect to unmapped taxa it is possible at a glance to distinguish common from very rare types in the county.

The remainder of the species account

This Flora is very different from the norm since for many species it incorporates a review or discussion of relevant interesting aspects of some of the following topics. Unlike the header information mentioned above, there is no absolutely set pattern used for each species synopsis. This is deliberate, the aim being to encourage the reader to persevere and take in the whole account.

1. Growth form and preferred habitats: The local range of most typical habitats, soils, tolerances and preferred growth conditions, occasionally making comparison with other regions.
2. Local frequency and distribution measured and very often displayed at tetrad level. Tetrad maps are plotted for all the species with records in more than four tetrads and less than 51% of Fermanagh tetrads (ie up to 264 tetrads). Tetrad maps of species beyond these limits were considered not worth printing since they really prove either nothing or what is the already obvious. Map symbols distinguish between tetrads where the particular species has been recorded pre-1976 (black symbols) and post-1975 (red symbols), the latter representing the start of the current authors' work in the county. In the case of taxa with fewer than 13 records, the full details of each record: date; recorder name(s); and site are given towards the end of the Fermanagh section of the account.
3. Wider distribution: The Fermanagh local occurrence of taxa is compared and put into context with that known elsewhere in some or all of the following: Northern Ireland, all Ireland, Great Britain, European and world distribution.Current population trends, increases and decreases in prevalence and range are often considered. 
4. Plant biology: Life form, size range, growth rate and especially those features that determine success and mobility – the predominant form of reproduction, flowering, seed production and dispersal, and/or vegetative increase and spread? Ask the questions: why is the plant here? Why is it successful? How does it get around? Does it persist longterm? How dependent is it upon mans' activities? 
5. Ecology: Colonising potential, vigour, stress tolerance, competitive ability, seed ecology and longevity in soil seed bank. 
6. Variability, both phenotypic plasticity and the range of genetic forms, depending upon available published research. 
7. Toxicology and palatability to both man and his grazing animals. 
8. Uses: medicinal or otherwise. 
9. Names: The origin and meanings of botanical names and a selection of               English common names.
   
10. Conservation threats, if known.

Tetrad maps have been included for species with records occurring in five or more tetrads. For rarer species the full list of records are listed in the species account text giving site, date and recorder details. In the knowledge that the book Flora is going to be a large one, it was decided that as a rule species which occurred in more than 50% of Fermanagh tetrads would not be mapped. It was also reckoned that tetrad maps for common species really give very little additional information to the reader or viewer.

The records in the tetrad maps have been mapped in two date classes pre-1976 (black symbols) and post-1975 (red symbols). In quite a number of instances, tetrads on the county boundary contained only small areas of ground within Fermanagh. These marginal areas have all been surveyed, and as a consequence of the choice of symbol size used on the maps, and the fact that the symbols are centred in the tetrad, it sometimes appears that the plant has been recorded in a neighbouring vice-county. In fact all the records plotted on our tetrad maps were recorded within Co Fermanagh.

Literature file

The accompanying list of references runs to a total of 80 pages A4 and contains approximately 2,600 sources that have been used in the preparation of the species accounts. I have tried to be as accurate as I can, but I have not always been able to obtain the original published paper or book, but have instead used it as a secondary source derived from a reference that I did have physical access to. In a few cases, the reference needed was hidden behind a paywall and I was then obliged to obtain whatever information I could from a freely available summary on the internet

A sense of place – the concept of Townlands

Townlands are the smallest administrative units on the island of Ireland. They are a uniquely Irish mapping concept, with boundaries loosely based on the quality of agricultural land and the lie of natural features, such as streamsm cliffs or other landscape features. As the land value varies, so does the area that makes up the individual townland. High quality agricultural land supports smaller townlands than poor, less productive ground, the latter being anything up to a thousand times larger. This means that they may range from less than an acre to thousands of acres. In different parts of the island, they vary also in average size, eg in the barony of Lecale, Co Down, near Downpatrick (where RSF lives), the mean size of townlands is around 450 acres.

There are over 600,000 townlands across the whole island of Ireland. They are the building blocks of our land and are grouped into the units more familiar elsewhere in these islands: parishes, electoral districts and counties. Everywhere in Ireland has a historic location in a townland, even in urban situations where they are now completely built over. Centuries prior to the creation of geographical OS map grids and global positioning satellites (GPS), townland names provided a very useful way of identifying and tracing small locations, and they represent a much more sophisticated naming system for Irish locations than exists in Britain and much of Europe.

In common with other Irish place names, most townland names originated in the Gaelic language, and British surveyors and mapmakers did their best to Anglicize these and their spelling. Sometimes this leads to the need for careful interpretation, because the Gaelic may have become obscured by the anglicization process.

Helpfully, the 1980s editions of the Northern Ireland Ordnance Survey (OS) 1:50,000 maps are heavily sprinkled with townland names, but they do not offer the complete set of the divisions, nor plot their boundaries. Fortunately for recording in Co Fermanagh, the NI OS has issued two 1:25,000 sheets covering Upper and Lower Lough Erne, and these maps provide an accurate set of modern townland boundaries and their names.

Useful references on Ulster Townlands

Crawford, W.H. and Foy, R.H. (eds.) (1998) Townland in Ulster, Ulster Historical Foundation in association with the Federation of Ulster Local Studies, Belfast.

McKay, P. (1999) A dictionary of Ulster Place-names. Ulster Place-name Society, Belfast.

Turner, B.S. (ed.) (2004) The Heart's Townland: marking boundaries in Ulster. Ulster Local History Trust, Downpatrick.

The Northern Ireland Place-names Project based at The Queen's University of Belfast has a website which helps trace townland name information. The address is www.placenamesni.org

A list of the OS Maps of Co Fermanagh

There are five sheets of the NI Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 maps covering Co Fermanagh. Their botanical usefulness is arranged in order across the page (left to right):

Sheet 17. Lower Lough Erne Sheet 27. Upper Lough Erne  Sheet 18. Enniskillen

Sheet 26. Lough Allen          Sheet 12. Strabane

The two NI OS maps covering the Lough Erne area on the 1:25,000 scale are:

Fermanagh Lakeland outdoor pursuits map and Navigation guide: Lower Lough Erne

Fermanagh Lakeland outdoor pursuits map and Navigation guide: Upper Lough Erne

Gazetteer file

I have also created a gazetteer of all the sites used in the Fermanagh Flora Database at the National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI) Centre for Environmental Data and Recording (CEDaR), listed in alphabetical order with six-figure map grid references.

Ralph S. Forbes, 23 February 2024