WILTHORPE MARSH 26th JULY 2014
Wilthorpe Marsh is one of a number of flood plains along the River Dearne. There are signs of its industrial past with what was an area of opencast mining about thirty years ago, some stretches of the abandoned Barnsley Canal where Hydrocharis morus-ranae(Frogbit) was found and the now closed Redbrook Colliery nearby. Six botanists enjoyed the day with Jeff Lunn who shared his vast knowledge, not only of the ecology but the history of the area. Rather than ramble on I have copied a letter from our VC63 Recorder Geoffrey Wilmore who sums up the day quite eloquently.
" Dear All
Please find attached the plant list for our visit to Wilthorpe Marsh last Saturday. Many thanks to Jeff Lunn for leading the walk and showing us a very diverse and interesting area of wetlands, neutral and acidic grasslands, woodland and scrub, to Peter Middleton for co-ordinating the arrangements, and, of course, to Kay Mc Dowell, for shouldering the main burden of recording during the day. It would be nice to do a full NVC evaluation of the area we covered. Sadly, time on the day did not permit the level of detail required to complete such an exercise, but I made a mental note of at least 9 or 10 NVC communities, and there are probably more. A truly rich area.
162 species recorded in the tetrad is a valuable total for the BSBI 2020 Atlas Project , and the Hydrocharis morsus-ranae has been entered in the Red Data Plant Register for VC 63.
Kind regards "
Anyone wanting a plant list please e-mail me.
Mel Linney
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