Surveying Plants
Plants are all around us and are an integral part of our lives; they fill our fields and hedgerows with greenery, our woodlands and verges with bright colour and the air with their fragrance. Norfolk has more than 1,000 species of wild flowering plants; these include grasses, sedges and rushes as well as trees and shrubs, which are simply large flowering plants. In addition there are many species of non-flowering plants, ranging from tiny mosses and liverworts to the larger more obvious ferns.
Wild plants were once commonly gathered for food and to provide natural remedies. Nowadays, apart from blackberry picking and the autumn gathering of conkers and sweet chestnuts, people are less aware of the diversity of their local wild plants and where particular species grow. This means there are gaps in our knowledge of the distribution of many plants and surveying your local area can help to remedy this.
Have you seen…?
Many plants, including the ones illustrated above, have suffered serious declines in recent decades and are no longer widespread in the Norfolk countryside. This reflects the loss of grasslands, marshes and other habitats together with changes to modern farming, such as more intensive herbicide use in cropped areas, allowing few wild flowers to survive on arable farmland. Some wild plants have declined so much they are now highly endangered.
To view a list of Norfolk wild flowers on the Biodivesity Action Plan list
click here.
The best way to get started is to begin with something simple. Keeping a list of wild flowers found in one small area, perhaps a section of roadside verge, your local churchyard, school grounds or a park, will enable you to develop your identification skills. Over the course of a year even a small area is likely to produce a list of between thirty and a hundred species.
To begin a simple site checklist use
survey form W.
Alternatively you can survey a larger area, such as a parish or village, but focus on a small group of species that are easy to identify. To cover a large area you may wish to involve the whole community in the survey or encourage the local school to adopt the survey as a project.
Even with more difficult groups, such as ferns, if you develop an interest in your local patch, with practice and close observation you will soon develop the skills to separate quite similar species. In any one area there are likely to be fewer than twenty species of ferns so the challenges of identification can be overcome.
Want to focus on plants of a particular habitat?
Some plants are known as indicator species and provide evidence of high quality habitats likely to be important for other wildlife. Click here for lists of indicator species for ancient woodlands and meadows.
You don’t have to be an expert…
There are a lot of plants for the beginner to come to terms with, but there is no need to panic. With practice and a good field guide you can easily begin to recognise individual species and if you wish to survey plants you will have a distinct advantage over those who survey birds, mammals or invertebrates because plants cannot run or fly away!
Start with the plants you know well: a survey of the distribution of a couple of species, for example primrose and
cowslip, can produce fascinating and useful results.
Equipment
Simple plant surveys can be done with no more equipment that a pencil, notebook and map. However, the following equipment can be helpful:
- A good hand lens.
- A digital cameral with a macro setting.
- A waterproof notebook.
- A good plant identification guide.
- A small plastic collecting pot or sealable plastic bag.
Collecting specimens
It is rarely necessary to gather plant specimens, and to uproot a wild plant without the landowner’s permission is breaking the law. Sometimes, to confirm the identity of a plant, it can be helpful to remove a single flower or leaf to study back at home. Comparing collected material with a range of reference books and illustrations can be fascinating and will help you learn. It will also allow you to seek an expert opinion. If you only remove single flowers and leaves and never uproot a whole plant then you are very unlikely to be doing any harm to a population of plants.
The one exception is the orchid family, some of which are legally protected against picking, and where in some cases a single flower spike may have taken many years to produce.
On sites which are nature reserves or SSSIs there are likely to be restrictions on any collecting and this should never be done without permission.
Need some inspiration?
Discover just some of the plant surveys people have been carry out in Norfolk.
Would like to tell us about your plant survey?
Click here.
Download a plant survey form here
Help is at hand…
If you need help identifying a plant take some photographs showing:
- The whole plant and its location/surrounding habitat.
- A close-up of any open flower.
- A close-up of the arrangement of the leaves on the stem and leaf shape.
- Any buds, seeds or distinctive features.
Add notes to the photos giving details of habitat and associated species, location, date, flower size, plant height, any distinctive scent of leaves or flowers, and any additional features that might not show in the photos, for example, whether the stem and leaves are hairy of smooth.
Email the photos and your notes to
wild@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk or upload the image
here.
Check online…
Foxed by foxgloves? Muddled by mallows?
Norfolk Wildlife Trust may be able to arrange a beginners or intermediate botany course for your group if there is sufficient demand. Contact NWT by
email or phone 01603 598333.
To get details of wild flower identification workshops in Norfolk check out our
event section.
Want to branch out…?
Plantlife, a charity working to protect Britain’s wild flowers and plants, is running a Common Plants Survey which is a long-term project monitoring changes to wild flowers in our countryside. The success of the survey is completely dependent on volunteer surveyors.
Watch out for aliens…!
Invasive non-native plants can have a serious impact on our native wildlife. We are working with the Norfolk Biodiversity Partnership to support their major
Non-native Species Initiative, which aims to reduce the spread of invasive non-native species already established in the county, eradicate them from priority areas, and prevent the introduction of further species.
A major hurdle to successful implementation of the Initiative is the lack of available information on the distribution of non-native species in Norfolk and records of these species will therefore be of great value. Particularly problematic species are:
Himalayan balsam,
giant hogweed and
Japanese knotweed.
Send your records to
Norfolk Biodiversity Information Service, Planning and Transportation Department, County Hall, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR1 2SG, email:
nbis@norfolk.gov.uk
For all your plant surveying needs…
You may find the following books, dvds, cds and equipment helpful when carrying out a plant survey:
Please watch this space we will be updating this section shortly.
Get the low down on Norfolk plants
Related questions
Surveying Plants - How do I find out what wild flowers grow in my local area?
Use survey form k.
Many wild flowers are confined to particular habitats such as woodlands, wetlands or meadows. Some plants will only grow on particular soil types. Getting to know the complete range of wild flowers in your local area is a fun and rewarding activity but will involve visiting the full range of habitats at several different times of year.
Unless you are part of an enthusiastic team this may be impractical during the course of a single growing season, and it may be more manageable to select a smaller area, say a roadside verge, and try to build a comprehensive picture of what is growing there over the course of a year. You can extend your survey in subsequent years to cover other habitats.
A good method of surveying plants in a large area such as a meadow will be to mark out a representative area of say, 5m x 5m or use a small quadrat at regular intervals over the complete area.
As well as listing the plants you find try to estimate the percentage of the area covered by individual species by using the following key:
Code
D = species makes up more than 50% of area and/or is the
dominant species.
Code
A = species is
abundant and makes up between 26% and 50% of area.
Code
F = species is
frequently encountered and makes up between 11% and 25% of area.
Code
O = species is
occasionally encountered and makes up between 5% and 10% of area.
Code
R = species is
rare and makes up less than 5% of the area.
If possible carry out this survey at least three times during a year:
- Spring – March/April
- Early Summer – June/July
- Late Summer – August/September
Surveying plants - How do I find out what wild flowers grow in my local area?
Use survey form k.
Many wild flowers are confined to particular habitats such as woodlands, wetlands or meadows. Some plants will only grow on particular soil types. Getting to know the complete range of wild flowers in your local area is a fun and rewarding activity but will involve visiting the full range of habitats at several different times of year.
Unless you are part of an enthusiastic team this may be impractical during the course of a single growing season, and it may be more manageable to select a smaller area - a roadside verge, for instance - and try to build a comprehensive picture of what is growing there over the course of a year. You can extend your survey in subsequent years to cover other habitats.
A good method of surveying plants in a large area such as a meadow will be to mark out a representative area (5m x 5m is a good size area for surveying plants) or use a small quadrat at regular intervals over the complete area.
As well as listing the plants you find, try to estimate the percentage of the area covered by individual species by using the following key:
- Code D = the species makes up more than 50% of the area and/or is the Dominant species.
- Code A = the species is Abundant and makes up between 26% and 50% of the area.
- Code F = the species is Frequently encountered and makes up between 11% and 25% of the area.
- Code O = the species is Occasionally encountered and makes up between 5% and 10% of the area.
- Code R = the species is Rare and makes up less than 5% of the area.
If possible carry out this survey at least three times during a year:
- Spring – March/April
- Early Summer – June/July
- Late Summer – August/September
Surveying plants - How do I find out what species of orchid grow in my parish?
Orchids are a fascinating family of plants and many species are good indicators of conservationally important sites. For example, the presence of several early purple orchids in a woodland may indicate that it is an ancient woodland. The presence of good numbers of orchids on a grassland site may indicate that fertilizers and chemical sprays have not been used for many years, and the site is therefore likely to be botanically rich in other species.
Finding orchids involves developing an eye for the right kinds of habitat and then checking the sites during the flowering time of the appropriate species. Make at least three visits during the year. Talking to local farmers and landowners may help you discover orchid sites.
You will need to take a map of your survey area with you and clearly mark on it where you see each species. Where possible make an actual count or estimate of numbers of flowering spikes.
Some orchids, such as bee orchids, may suddenly appear on sites where they have not been recorded before, especially on disturbed areas such as quarries and building sites. It was an excellent year for bee orchids in 2009, with records from all over Norfolk; even close to the centre of Norwich.
Beware the cross-pollinators!
A word of warning: some orchid species, especially the spotted orchids and marsh orchids, will readily hybridise and may therefore cause confusion. If you have any doubts, send a photograph (clearly showing the flower spike, leaves and surrounding habitat) to NWT at
wild@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk
A sample form for surveying plants (survey form k) can be found here.