There are signs that some wild plants in Britain are shifting northwards with rising temperatures in the UK.
The southern marsh-orchid grows in damp grasslands and was only found in the southern half of the UK, but has now reached as far north as Newcastle upon Tyne. And the fabulous bee orchid that imitates bees with its stunning patterns and velvety texture was not found in Scotland, but has now been discovered at several sites around Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Mossy stonecrop is a fleshy succulent that was confined to the New Forest and East Anglia but is now spreading into sandy habitats in Scotland. And early meadow-grass, which was found in the Lizard peninsula of Cornwall, is spreading northward and has been recorded at Fishguard in south-west Wales and is even common in central London.
Another striking change is how many native plants are being pushed out by nitrogen-hungry plants such as nettles, cow parsley and brambles, as habitats become polluted by nitrogen fertilisers and air pollution.
These results came from 15,000 surveys by volunteers in the National Plant Monitoring Scheme that revealed big shifts in plant distributions over the past five years, but whether this year’s plant survey is affected by the national lockdown remains to be seen.
