Flora of Ashdown Forest - Botanical Society of the British Isles

*Genista anglica. Petty whin, Needle furze.On Ashdown Forest (Col em an 18361. Ashdown Forest 1904, J. Stirling (TLS). Near Gills Lap;Friar's Gate (Done 1914). Frequent on the Forest (Hall 1980).Concentrated on the east side of the Forest in the Gills Lap to Camp Hill area (e,g.abundant on rides near Stone Cottage), and also elsewhere where there is good heath land .Ashdown Forest is the centre of its distribution in Sussex, and it is surprisingly rare on theLower Greensand in West Sussex, Like many other plants of lowland heaths it is decreasing inEngland (Rich & Woodruff 1996)' but it is still scattered on upland moorland in easternScotland. It occurs in western Europe from Sweden to Italy, and in north-west Africa.Be warned, plants may sometimes be spineless (var. subinermis) and sometimes hairy ...which does not make them G, pilosa; we have not as yet noted these variants on the Forest.V/ex europaeus, Gorse, Furze, Hawth, Hoth. (Plate 5)"Customary tenants ought by custom to have heath, bracken and gorse to burn for theirneeds" Extent of Ashdown Forest, 1274. Ubiquitous on the Forest (Hall 1980).Gorse generally tends to occur on acid brown earths rather than heath podzols (Proctor1994), so it is often abundant along roadsides, heath margins, acidic grassland and in openscrub and is one of the commonest plants on the more open areas and roadsides on theForest. A good place to see the contrast is south of Gills Lap where it lines the road but isinfrequent in the heather to the east and west, though it is abundant on the steep slopesaround Gills Lap itself. Soil pHs measured at eight sites range from 2.8-5.6 with a mean of4.1 (± 0.3 s.e.). In some areas it dominates whole areas and forms dense groves; plantsopposite Churlwood car park were 2.6 metres tall.In spring the flowers scent the air with coconut and create swathes of yellow across the Forest. Later the ripe podssplitting open with a sharp snap to scatter the seeds is a familiar sound on sunny days in July. The flowering of gorse isnotoriously variable from year to year. 1994 was a poor year for flowers, but in 1995 it started flowering profusely inJanuary, which was very early and continued until mid May. If it flowers early, does it set seed?At monthly intervals in spring 1995, PA and TR labelled ten flowers on each of 21 plants and followed them throughto fruit-set. Quite a lot of the earlier flowers aborted but some did set fruit - significantly fewer in February and March thanlater. Only the February flowers had lower numbers of seeds in each pod, so even if kissing is in season, reproduction istoo!However, with the exception of those February flowers most of the seeds in the pods were predated by either thegorse weevil (Apion ulicis) or a micro-moth. These seed predators are easily seen in nearly ripe pods - the weevils aregreyish and have long snouts, the micro-moth larvae are little caterpillars. Once predation has been taken into account, theactual percentage fruit set varied surprisingly little. The weevils cannot escape from the pods themselves, and have towait until they split open - so the familiar crack of pods may be more usually indicative of weevils flying through the airthan seeds.Summary of fruit and seed set in V/ex europaeus 'In 1995 near Long car park (10 flowers were marked on each of 21bushes at approximately four week intervals).117Date flowers markedNumber of bushes floweringMean number of pods harvested per bushMean number of seeds per un predated podMean percentage pods predatedMean number of good seeds per podMean chance of ovule producing seed4 Feb.63.21.85.3%1.85.5%5 March123.34.576%2.24.4%2 April 29 April20 216.2 5.34.5 4.661% 64.5%2.3 1.910.8% 8,1%Gorse was widely used on the Forest for roofing, fuel, cooking, bread making, and brick and lime kilns (Steele 1936;Leppard 1980; Irons 1982). The spines protect it to some extent from grazing, and the plant was crushed in a special millso it could be fed to animals. Others note that the thorns are remarkably persistent in the skin, some taking six days to getout. Blooms are still collected on the Forest to make wine, and there were authorised sales by the Wood Reeve of gorsefor horse jumps and for planting. Arthur (1989) records that sticks of gorse from Ashdown Forest were sold for umbrellahandles. A very readable account of gorse, including the economic uses and folklore, is given by Humphries &Shaughnessy (1987).Gorse is a predominantly western plant in Europe, but is widespread in Britain. It is also widespread in Australasia asan introduction and is a noxious weed. The potential for controlling it using the weevils has been investigated but has metwith little success.