Hieracium calcaricola (F.J. Hanbury) Roffey, Toothed Hawkweed

Account Summary

What is now redetermined as a single record from the site listed above is represented by multiple vouchers that were collected by Brenan over several days in July 1872 and held in BEL. S.A. Stewart originally identified Brenan's specimens as H. tridentatum Fr. (Hackney 1975). In November 1969, C.E.A. Andrews redetermined one of the vouchers (Accession Number H2616) as H. stewartii (F. Hanb.) Roffey, Stewart's Hawkweed. This microspecies is named in honour of the famous, long-lived, NI botanist, S.A. Stewart (1826-1910), an important recording pioneer of the flora of NI who discovered many first county records.

Another of Rev Brenan's specimens, collected at the site on the same occasion (Accession Number H73597), was redetermined by Andrews as H. uiginskyense Pugsley, Uig Hawkweed in August 1970. D. McCosh redetermined this as a second specimen of H. calcaricola in 2008. Another voucher in BEL with Accession Number H45537 exists and the Herbarium Keeper (Paul Hackney's temporary replacement), considers this to be a duplicate of what was previously named H. uiginskyense. For some unknown or unstated reason this voucher has not been determined by any authority (P. Hackney, pers. comm., 25 July 2008). A third portion of Brenan's Hieracium collection from the Marble Arch was redetermined as H. ampliatum by Andrews in August 1969 (see separate account below).

Sell & Murrell (2006, p. 251) state that H. calcaricola [nowadays] "includes most of the narrow-leaved plants that [previously] were included in British H. tridentatum.". They go on to affirm that, "True H. tridentatum Fr. is a slender, short plant with eglandular involucral bracts which does not seem to occur in our area.". The distribution map of H. calcaricola in the BSBI Critical Supplement to the Atlas of the British Flora (Perring & Sell 1968, Map 558/1.229) plots no records in Ireland at all, but displays a thin scatter of approximately 35 hectads across England and Wales. Likewise Sell & Murrell (2006, p. 251) describe H. calcaricola as being native, with scattered records in England and Wales and recognised as, "introduced in waste ground in Edinburgh.". They also state the opinion that it is probably widespread in Europe.

In contrast to the above, H. stewartii has definitely been recorded elsewhere in the north of Ireland, in Cos Donegal (H34 & H35), Down (H38) and Londonderry (H40), and it has also appeared further south in the RoI, plus in Scotland and Wales (Perring & Sell 1968, Map 558/1.221; Sell & Murrell 2006, p. 252).

Similarly with H. uiginskyense, which belongs to a totally separate Hieracium section from H. stewartii (Sell & Murrell 2006), it is a local, native B & I endemic microspecies found mainly in C & W Scotland and in Wales, but with a couple of additional isolated stations in the north of Ireland. The above mentioned 'Critical Atlas' (Perring & Sell 1968, Map 558/1.214) plots hectad records of H. uiginskyense in Cos Donegal (it is not possible to be certain from the map whether it is in W or E Donegal (H34 or H35), and Down (H38), which Sell & Murrell (2006, p. 255) also recognise. However, as is also the case with H. stewartii, for some unknown reason these authors fail to note the existence of records of these two microspecies also occurring in Fermanagh.

When Hackney (1975) published a note in the Irish Naturalists' Journal announcing the re-determination of Brenan and Stewart's vouchers in BEL by C.E.A. Andrews, he mentioned that R.D. Meikle had stated, in a personal letter, that subsequent visits he had made to the Marble Arch area had failed to produce any interesting hawkweeds.

References

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