BSBINews - BSBI Archive - Botanical Society of the British Isles

Notes - Taraxacum cymbifolium in Scotland 3
NOTES
Taraxacum cymbifolium in Scotland
MrCHAEL B. USHER, School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling,
Stirling, FK94LA
JOHN RICHARDS, High Trees, South Park, Hexham, NE46 lBT
Taraxacum cymbifolium (a dandelion) has
been known from a single locality in Scotland.
Dudman & Richards (1997) state that this is
"at 1,000m (3,200ft) in the south-west corrie
of Ben Lawers, Perth, on calcareous schist".
The register of rare plants, kept by the Nature
Conservancy Council prior to 1991, gave a
single 6-figure grid reference, which corresponds
with Dudman & Richards' description.
T. cymbifolium is one of the six species of the
genus Taraxacum in section Taraxacum, all of
which are confined in the British Isles to the
mountains of Scotland. Three of the species
could be described as being relatively widely
distributed in Scotland, one with a very
restricted distribution, and two have been
recorded in only a single lOkm grid square
(T. cymbifolium and T. clovense).
T. cymbifolium has a most unusual distribution.
As Dudman & Richards (1997) say, "this
species shows a remarkable disjunct distribution
in the Arctic. The Ben Lawers station is
10° latitude south of any other in Europe".
Checking out the species name on a
commonly used intemet search engine, a
number of websites mention the species.
These include www.sva1bardflora.net. which
maps it as occurring on Bear Island, and
www.srgc.org.uk, which refers to it as the
'Bear Island Dandelion'. It is, however, given
the name 'Ben Lawers Dandelion', both by
Sell & Murrell (2006) and in
www.biodiversityscotland.gov.uk.Itis
recorded as being in the IUCN category
'vulnerable' by www.plantnetwork.org, but
this classification might be better as 'data
deficient'. Sell & Murrell (2006) record the
species as occurring in Faeroes, Iceland,
Norway and Svalbard (but the latter reference
is probably to Bear Island rather than Sva1bard
sensu stricto), and www2.nrm.se also records
it from Finland.
Given these comments about the species, it
is notable that it is now known to occur in at
least a second site in Scotland. On 16 th May
2008 MBU was searching for some of the
earlier-flowering alpine plants on Ben
V rackie, Perthshire. A number of dandelions
were in flower, but he did not attempt identifications
in the field. Two specimens of apparently
different species were collected, pressed
and later identified by JR. As he said in a
letter to MBU, "there is no doubt that the
creme de la creme is a second station for that
most extreme disjunct (Svalbard, N. Iceland)
T. cymbifolium" (see Front Cover). The
specimen is now in the herbarium of the Royal
Botanic Garden Edinburgh (E).
The location was at an altitude of approximately
665m, at national grid reference
NN950629, on a steep, grassy, herb-rich slope.
It was growing in a mixed population with
T. brachyglossum, and lower down the
mountain, at an altitude of about 400m, a
second species of section Taraxacum was
growing (T. ceratolobum). Unfortunately
MBU did not make a count of the possible
number of T. cymbifolium in this grassy sward
- a further visit in 2009 proved to be too early
to find any of the dandelions in flower.
From a conservation perspective, this dandelion
species is now known from two sites in
Scotland, approximately 34 km apart, and at
different altitudes. There appear to be few
pressures on these popu1ations, other than by
trampling by people searching for the more
widely known rare alpine plants. Clearly what
is needed is a survey of T. cymbifolium in its
two localities, and in time an estimate of
whether or not the sizes of the populations are
changing. There would also be merit in
searching for this species in other base-rich
communities in the Scottish Highlands and at
a variety of altitudes. It is now known from