Rare Plant Register for Huntingdonshire - Botanical Society of the ...

Cruciata laevipes Opiz.
Crosswort
National Status: Not scarce, not threatened County Status: Scarce (4 sites, 4 tetrads)
Site Grid Reference Last Record
Fenstanton TL318670 2009 (NM)
Houghton Meadows SSSI, Far Close TL293717 2004 (TW)
Paxton Pits TL195630 2005 (RE)
Overcote, Pike and Eel TL360704 2004 (BM)
A species of old grassland that was never common in Huntingdonshire.
Cuscuta epithymum (L.) L.
Dodder
National Status: Vulnerable County Status: Rare (1 site, 1 tetrad)
Site Grid Reference Last Record
Great Stukeley Railway Cutting SSSI, Unit
3
26
TL23477565 2010 (TC)
Known at this site since 1973. The national range of this species is now much contracted and
this is one of the few remaining populations outside southern England.
Cuscuta europaea L.
Greater Dodder
National Status: Nationally Scarce, not
threatened
County Status: Rare (3 sites, 4 tetrads)
Site Grid Reference Last Record
Holt Island Nature Reserve TL310715 2011 (BM)
Holywell-cum-Needingworth, Meadow
Lane Gravel Pits
TL325702 1999 (BM & JM)
Paxton Pits TL195630 2005 (RE)
River Ouse, Hemingford Grey TL319701 1997 (BM)
St Ives Meadow TL321699 1998 (BM & JM)
This species is widespread, but rare, along the course of the River Great Ouse. It is a rootless
annual parasite which upon germination attaches itself to a primary host, typically Common
Nettle (Urtica dioica), from which point it is then able to exploit a wide range of secondary
hosts. It always grows in damp nitrophilous conditions where the primary host occurs in
abundance (Stewart et al. 1994).