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Lists of ancient woodland indicator species among vascular plants were developed by the Nature Conservancy Council (now Natural England) for each region of England, with each list containing the hundred most reliable indicators for that region.
The plant is an ancient woodland indicator, as the ants rarely carry the seeds more than a few yards, seldom crossing a field to go to a new woodland. The Latin specific epithet pratense means "of meadows". [2] Melampyrum pratense is a food plant of the caterpillars of the heath fritillary (Melitaea athalia), a butterfly. [3]
Allium ursinum is a bulbous, perennial herbaceous monocot, that reproduces primarily by seed. The narrow bulbs are formed from a single leaf base [ 8 ] and produce bright green entire, elliptical leaves up to 25 cm (9.8 in) long x 7 cm (2.8 in) wide with a petiole up to 20 cm (7.9 in) long. [ 8 ]
A bluebell wood is a woodland that in springtime has a carpet of flowering bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) underneath a newly forming leaf canopy. The thicker the summer canopy, the more the competitive ground-cover is suppressed, encouraging a dense carpet of bluebells, whose leaves mature and die down by early summer.
Polystichum aculeatum, the hard shield-fern, [1] is an evergreen fern native to Europe.It is most abundant in upland regions of the British Isles and western France, where it benefits from the combination of mild winters and moist summers, but also occurs more locally across most of Europe except northern Scandinavia, northern Russia; in the Mediterranean region it is confined to high altitudes.
The antiquity of the woodlands is reflected in the very high number of ancient woodland indicator species recorded within the site. Over fifty such species occur, including a number of rare or local plants such as tutsan (Hypericum androsaemum) making it one of the botanically richest woods in Hampshire. [1]
There is also an extraordinary range of geophytes, the plants that have bulbs or bulbous growths that make them especially adapted to woodland. These include the ancient woodland indicators of lily-of-the-valley, herb paris and ramsons, but also the uncommon in angular Solomon'-seal (Polygonatum odoratum) as well as the common in bluebells ...
Very rare species are not considered axiophytes; for a species to be a useful indicator of quality habitat it must be relatively frequent in those habitats, but scarce elsewhere. A typical example would be dog's mercury (Mercurialis perennis), a plant slow to colonise new sites, but common in ancient woodland and old hedgerows.