Ranunculus flammula subsp. scoticus
(E.S. Marshall) A.R. Clapham, a Lesser Spearwort

Native, occasional or rare, possibly over-looked and under-recorded. Eurosiberian temperate.

1904; Praeger, R.Ll.; Shean Lough.

There are a total of ten records for this variant in the Fermanagh Flora Database, but they are all pre-1950 and questionable. When editing the Revised Typescript Flora, R.D. Meikle commented that this subspecies intergrades with subsp. flammula and that he considered it scarcely worth recognition even as a variety. Webb & Scannell (Flora of Connemara and the Burren) comment that Praeger (following E.S. Marshall's example), took far too wide a view of this variant, and that if it occurs at all in Ireland, it is only in Co Mayo (H26 and H27).

The species account in the New Atlas comments that this segregate is little known, has been confused in the past with subsp. flammula and is almost certainly under-recorded (R.A. Fitzgerald, in: Preston et al. 2002). Five of the ten Fermanagh records are Praeger's own finds, one of which is dated 1934 and the other four 1904. In view of Webb & Scannell's comment, we will discount them unless vouchers subsequently emerge. Two records were made by R. Mackechnie, a highly respected Scottish field botanist, many of whose Irish records are supported by vouchers in Edinburgh Botanic Garden (E). The remaining three records were made by Meikle and his co-workers in 1946, 1947 and 1948, but again there are no vouchers and, as mentioned above, they clearly did not regard the plant as of much significance.

In the circumstances, we feel we can reiterate Hackney's comment in FNEI 3, ie "More field investigations of these creeping forms are required."