Hugh Harris: Moore Nature Reserve Species List
Field trip plant list of 180 species in Latin name alphabetic order. The number in the comments column indicates the order in which the plant was seen during the event.
Field trip plant list of 180 species in Latin name alphabetic order. The number in the comments column indicates the order in which the plant was seen during the event.
Ten Liverpool Botanical Society members accompanied by Anne-Marie Belcher, Reserve Warden and Lee Lappin, local naturalist explored the footpaths and bird hides of Moore Nature Reserve and Moss Side. Moore Nature Reserve is situated between the Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey. The 186 acres site has been managed as a nature reserve since 1991 after a history of land use for farming and sand quarrying. Today the reserve is surrounded by woodland, meadows and wetlands which provide a rich biodiversity of habitats for birds, mammals, insects, plants, amphibians and fungi. On the day 180 species of wildflowers were recorded.
Formby Asparagus (also the name of the variety) is white at the base and green through the stem with a purple tinged tip. New asparagus crowns are grown from seed which is saved from the old plant. After the first year, the crowns are transplanted into a 20cm deep trench and a ridge 8cm high is piled up around them. The first cutting can be taken in the third year. While tractors are now used to manage the land, the crop is cut by hand.
Objectives:
Lunt Meadows is an entirely new 77 ha wetland nature reserve, located along the River Alt floodplain, owned by the Environment Agency, in North Merseyside. It is sited adjacent to an area of raised bank suspected to be the first point of overtopping in a flood event. In July 2010 the River Alt bank did breach in this location and an area of 80 ha was inundated to a maximum depth of 1m. Developing habitats include wet grassland, reedbed, fen and open water. The site is managed primarily for breeding waders and water vole.
The aims of the workshop were to develop skills in identifying British native grass species, recognise the most widely occurring grasses and to familiarise ourselves with reference book keys and herbarium specimens.
Peter Gateley, local Ecologist recommended at least 2 guides for starters in grass identification:
We started with naming of parts of live specimens and photographs which are diagnostic in identifying the grass; Inflorescence (flower head), florets, awns, spikelets, ligules, leaves and growth forms
Droughts are not very easy to define. A drought is not just a lack of water for a significant period. It is difficult to come up with a single definition as drought varies from place to place. A severe drought in the Indian monsoon, such as that during the 2002 season, can be caused by just a few weeks of deficit rainfall. In south-east Australia, rainfall amounts have been below normal for about a decade, leading to an extended drought which has affected farming practices and has led to a series of wildfires in populated areas. In the UK people say there is a hose-pipe ban if it doesn’t rain for 14 days! In fact, there are a whole range of types of drought including; agricultural (farming), meteorological (weather), hydrological (surface water) and socio-economic (ones which affect humans).
http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/m/marshside/about.aspx
Marshside is located where the sand dunes of the Sefton Coast give way to the salt-marshes, mud-flats and reclaimed land of the Ribble Estuary.