Flora of Ashdown Forest - Botanical Society of the British Isles

100PotentiJ/a X mixta (P. erecta x rep tans and P. anglica x rep tans).Many sterile plants creeping and rooting at the nodes were recorded under this name, mainlyin 1995 after PW had drawn our attention to how frequent they were. It is a composite taxonof two possible origins which are difficult to distinguish morphologically. Plants occurtypically on roadsides and hedge banks, often without either parent but rarely far from them.It is widespread in Britain.Potentilla rep tans. Creeping cinquefoil, Five fingers.Patches of this creeping plant are typical of roadsides, often in slightly more enriched sitesthan P. erecta. It can also dominate in grassland which is heavily grazed by rabbits, as theydo not seem to eat it.Virtually ubiquitous in Sussex (Hall 1980) and in Europe, though rarer in the north; theMiddle East, Himalaya and North Africa.Potentilla sterilis. Barren strawberry.Common on the Forest IHall 19801.The most typical sites for this evergreen species are on hedge banks, in sunken lanes andon woodland banks where it does not get covered in leaf litter. Large populations along thebanks of Priory Road 1412.3381 and opposite Pooh car park 1472.3311 were mostly scrapedoff during over-zealous ditching works in spring 1995. It is often regarded as an ancientwoodland indicator species but occurs widely in our secondary woodlands,Common in the Weald and in Britain on moist, base-rich soils of intermediate pH, It isabsent from water-logged and drought-prone sites (Grime et al. 1988),It is an endemic, predominantly western, species in Europe. It becomes rare eastwardsand in the Czech Republic in 1993, JK and TR had to pull up Convallaria majalis and Polvgonatum odoratum to prevent itbeing shaded out in one of its two sites (Rich 1996).Fragaria vesca. Wild strawberry.Common around the Forest (Hall 1980).Our map gives more detail also showing it to occur mainly around the edges. It oftenoccurs on road banks with Potentilla sterilis but it may be less common because it grows beston calcareous soils of which we have few.The delicious little strawberries are eaten by birds, slugs and hungry botanists, It formspatches and spreads up to 1 metre at a time by stolons which appear after flowering in thelate summer; the stolons root when they contact moist soils and decay during the winter toleave separate plants for the following year.It is widespread in Britain and Europe, but is decreasing in England (Rich & Woodruff1996). It is distributed world-wide in temperate areas and occurs at higher altitudes in the tropics,An odd, robust form has been recorded near Marden's Hill but is believed to belong to this taxon (det. A. C. Leslie). Ithas been recorded at 494.317, 1988, PW and 1995, TR near the old mill building.*Fragaria x ananassa. Garden strawberry.Tetrads 42J and 43A IHall 19801.A garden escape not re-recorded during our survey.Britain.It originated in cultivation, and is occasionally naturalized in*Duchesnea ;nd;ca. Yellow-flowered strawberry.Bank of path near garden, Nutley 1445.2781. 1995, RR & PH.Rarely established in Sussex, and mainly naturalized in southern woodlands in Britain. Itis widespread as a native in Asia, but is widely grown in gardens in Britain. The fruit isreputed to be poisonous.