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Boringdon Park, Plympton. (Please note this is Private Land)
Grid Ref: SX 529 577
In 1997 detailed planning permission was granted for a 27 hole Golf Course with
Clubhouse and Driving Range; with approximately two-thirds of the course area within the city limits of the Plymouth City Boundary and one third in the South Hams District. The golf course, previously arable farmland, will span Plymbridge Road, a road running from Plympton to the South-East across the River Plym at Plym Bridge to Estover in the North-West.
The construction work overlooks most of the south and east of Plymouth and there are some absolutely superb views to be gained from the site. How marvellous that it should now become such an amenity for people to enjoy. All summer long I said to myself I must take a look up there one afternoon, just to check what is up there, the site lying just across the valley, clearly visible from the top of the hill where I live.
I first visited the site on Bank Holiday Sunday, 27th August 2006, and found that there were two sites north and south of Plym Bridge Road. The landscaping on the south side, the Plymouth side, was more advanced and you could already see all the harrowing and raking that had been done, and where the greens were to be. So I decided to conduct my search on the South Hams side of the site, and where the landscaping was obviously less advanced. Less advanced was really an understatement for thousands of tonnes of topsoil had been scrapped from the site and placed in bunds for later use, and an even larger amount of demolition rubble, top soil and sub-soil had been imported for the landscaping of the course, in some areas the ground has been built up by 30 feet or more.
On walking across the site for the first time, and looking at the flora, in areas it was very difficult to tell the natural and the imported substrates, as so many aliens were sharing the ground with so many natives, although the site was overall quite sparse of vegetation. Rather notably there were very few docks, dandelions or grasses, this was probably due to the fact the topsoil had been taken off, and the demolition rubble would have been quite alkaline, thus leading to a site low in fertility.
Two mounds caught my attention from a distance, they were both about six feet high and covered in sunflowers of an equal height, I thought them worth investigating more closely. The first plants I found amongst the sunflowers were Panicum miliaceum (Proso Millet), Phalaris canariensis (Canary-grass) and Setaria italica (Green Bristle-grass / Foxtail Millet) but these were followed by dicots such as Fagopyrum esculentum (Buckwheat) and Carthamus tinctorius (Safflower), the latter two I'd never seen before.
Beside these two mounds was an area covered with brightly coloured horticultural
species, a small area I now sympathetically call ''The Garden''; an area containing
Aubretia, Californian Poppy, Oriental Poppy, Early Goldenrod, Hollyhock, Nemesia, Pansy, Pot Marigold, Cypress Spurge and Argentine Vervain, hence the name.
However, amongst all the garden plants were a couple of very interesting finds, the first possibly being there as a horticultural escape, the second certainly not. The very small Chaenorrhinum organifolium (Malling Toadflax) was the first find, a find that took days to identify; and the second took even longer, but was finally identified with the kind help of Dr. Ackeroyd, the Persicaria Referee, it was a plant previously seen twice in East Devon since 1900, Persicaria hydropiper var. densiflorum (Dense-flowered Water Pepper). The plant itself looked like Water Pepper but there was just something else about it, my initial thoughts were that it could just possibly be a hybrid between Water Pepper and Pale Persicaria, as to me that's what it looked like. Fortunately, I was suspicious enough to make a voucher and take photographs as I'm very pleased by this find.
I just had to go back the next day, especially with it being Bank Holiday Monday, and the weather was much better for photography so I decided to spend an afternoon taking
pictures of what I had seen the previous day and look around a little more. It wasn't long before I was finding more plants, aliens yet again, but this time of the vegetable kind, Marrows, Pumpkins and Tomatoes; later being followed by Amaranthus retroflexus (Common Amaranth), Nicandra physalodes (Apple of Peru), Nicotiana alata (Sweet
Tobacco), Setaria pumila (Yellow Bristle-grass) and the native Thlaspi arvense (Field Penny Cress).
Of course having just had a very enjoyable Bank Holiday, I just had to inform a friend about the site, local amateur botanist Phil Pullen, and Phil was very interested in coming along as there was quite a few plants he hadn't seen before. It had already been
something of an alien summer for Phil as he had already provided records for Rostraria cristata (Mediterranean Hair-grass), Erucastrum gallicum (Hairy Rocket), Senecio inaequidens (Narrow-leaved Ragwort) and Aster squamatus (South-eastern Annual
Saltmarsh Aster), from the centre of Plymouth, the latter a first record for the UK.
On the 3rd September I picked Phil up and we made our way there. I first took him to see the plants I'd found on previous visits, but after this we resumed our search across more of the site, and it wasn't long before we started finding more plants. Aliens worthy of mention include Guizotia abyssinica (Niger), Bassia scoparia (Summer-cypress), Lepidium sativum (Garden Cress), Scrophularia scorodonia (Balm-leaved Figwort) and Datura stramonium var. tatula (Thorn Apple); and natives found that day included
Mercurialis annua (Annual Mercury). We finished the day by discussing the site, trying to piece together just why there were so many aliens and why so many noteworthy natives, and I will come to this later. There was one thing that we did agree on; same place, same time, the following Sunday.
So on the 10th September we embarked on yet another search of the site and yet again new plants were found. Now, as this is getting a bit monotonous, plant list after plant list, I must now describe the search in a little more detail. The site itself, and here I mean 'the area of interest', and not the complete field, is probably just three or four hundred yards square, not necessarily a large site to search, but the searching was made much more difficult purely because of the fact we didn't know what to expect. It was all too easy for the eye to be drawn to something brightly coloured, and miss seeing something literally under your feet; and a case of ''plants being easier to find if you'd come across them before syndrome'', so a lot a methodical searching and concentration had to be employed.
Initially, we actually concentrated our searches where we saw brightly coloured horticultural annuals for we realised it was in these areas where we would initially find a wider variety of plants, natives included, these areas probably being more suitable for the
germination of a wider range of species. However, it later became apparent that literally anything could be found anywhere across the site and so less densely populated areas also became important for searching.
The 10th September proved to be another very interesting day for aliens, another
Amaranth was found, this one still has to be identified, similar to A. retroflexus but
glaucous, Ambrosia artemisiifolia (Common Ragweed), Borago officinalis (Borage),
Oxalis incarnata (Pale Pink-sorrel), Galinsoga quadriradiata (Shaggy Soldier),
Physalis peruviana (Cape Gooseberry) and Sisyrinchium californicum (Yellow-eyed-grass). Four alien grasses were also found, Echinochloa crus-galli (Cockspur),
Echinochloa esculenta (Japanese Millet), Polypogon viridis (Water Bent) and
Polypogon monspeliensis (Annual Beard-grass).
The natives this time included Chaenorhinum minus (Small Toadflax), Linaria repens (Pale Toadflax), Lactuca virosa (Great Lettuce), Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima (Sea Beet) and Lavatera arborea (Tree-mallow); the latter suggesting that at least some of the imported soil and demolition material might have come from areas on or close to Plymouth's Devonian Limestone Belt, and possibly somewhere close to the waterfront. The best find of the day though, was without a doubt, Spergularia bocconei (Greek
Sea-spurrey), and we are both very grateful to Tim Rich for his confirmation.
After such a good day, or good couple or weekends we both considered that we might have just about found everything there was to be found, but given the urgency to record as much as possible because work is on-going on the site, I decided to look around one evening the following week and I just couldn't believe my luck. Growing just off the path beside a storage area, quite close to where I park the car, a creamy-white flower took my eye, it turned out to be Misopates calycinum (Pale Weasel-snout) and I found another plant that positively confirmed the identification later that week. Other plants I found that week included more horticultural annuals such as Busy Lizzie, Salpiglossis and Petunia, and the shrubby Solanum capsicastrum (Winter Cherry), quite hardy in parts of the south-west; but Myrrhis odorata (Sweet Cicely) and Solanum physalifolium var.nitidibaccatum (Green Nightshade) were the best finds; the latter I'd originally
dismissed for Solanum nigrum but having read about certain subspecies of S. nigrum
in Stace I decided to go back and look at it again, good thing I did.
At this stage I am ''really'' thinking that we've covered the site fairly well, but no, I
continue to prove myself wrong and on writing this I am expecting to continue to add new plants to the plant list for this site for some time yet. Every time I go, I find something else, it is such a remarkable site. On showing friends to the site Phil and I have continued to find more plants whilst showing them around. One of these plants was
tentatively identified by John Crellin of (www.floralimages.co.uk), who visited the site
recently, as Linaria x dominii, (L. purpurea x L. repens); other alien finds include
Campanula poscharskyana (Trailing Bell-flower), Beta vulgaris ssp. cicla var.flavescens (Swiss Chard), Diascia barberae (Diascia / Twin-spur), Hyoscyamus niger (Henbane), Ficus carica seedling (Fig) and possibly Linaria nevadensis (Roadside Toadflax) but yet to be confirmed. With natives including, Chenopodium ficifolium (Fig-leaved Goosefoot), Chenopodium murale (Nettle-leaved Goosefoot) and Senecio viscosus (Sticky
Groundsel).
Further visits are planned during October and November 2006 but as the autumn draws to a close and the likelihood of finding much else diminishes there will be more time to conduct research into finding out where much of the flora came from. The flora on this site can roughly be divided into four main groups, Alien (Horticultural), Alien (Seed
Aliens) - probably bird seed, Local Natives and Imported Natives.
According to the site manager, demolition material and subsoil has been brought in from a multitude of places and I have already hinted at the potential for the origin of some of the plants. My first idea was that a proportion of the rubble and soil might have come from an old allotment site, where animals were kept, or old walled garden, but this would not explain why all these unusual plants are occurring across the whole site in such numbers. However on driving back from the site one day an idea came into my head, and I thought I might have to think bigger. Could all the imported material be coming from a local zoo or wildlife park ? It would explain a lot.
I first contacted the nearest wildlife park, the Dartmoor Wildlife Park at Sparkwell, which is reasonably close to the site, sadly the reply was, ''No recent demolition''. So I then contacted the Curator of Plants at Paignton Zoo and asked the same question, I
received a similar reply but the curator was very interested in what I had to say. He stated that most of the aliens found were indeed ''Bird Seed Aliens'' and he thought I was on the right track by thinking the material could have come from the demolition of a wildlife park, although he suggested that it was probably from a Bird Park, as this would account for the Alien (Horticultural), Alien (Bird Seed) and Imported Native. He also stated that a Bird Park in East Devon closed down in 2005, so this is a lead to be
followed up. In the mean time I might be able to roughly target where the Imported
Natives might have come from using the BSBI Atlas Project (http://www.bsbiatlas.org.uk/main.php) or information gained from Roger Smith, the South Devon BSBI Recorder; using such plants as Persicaria hydropiper var. densiflorum, Hyoscyamus niger,
Mercurialis annua, Spergularia bocconei, Linaria repens, Scrophularia scorodonia and Chenopodium murale, natives that rarely occur in the Plymouth area. Here I must thank Roger Smith for all the help and assistance he has given.
It is likely that by the time this is published, the only plants to be found on the site will be amenity grasses and hundreds of trees and shrubs; at least by then we will have a good record of what was found, and possibly a better insight and understanding of why so many unusual species, some new to Devon, occurred in such a small area.
To finish I would like to thank the site manager at Boringdon Park for allowing us to
record whilst construction work was in progress.
David Fenwick (October 2006)
An edited account of this was published in BSBI News, Jan. 2007
BSBI (Botanical Society of the British Isles)
Also See - Boringdon Park (Species Recorded in 2006/7)
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