I Love Arnside and Silverdale: Autumn Gentians (Gentianella amarella) Found some at last!

Tuesday, 10 September 2019

Autumn Gentians (Gentianella amarella) Found some at last!

If you want to check out the 2019 VISIBLE BIRD MIGRATION PAGES then please click over the following link: https://arnsidesilverdale.blogspot.com/2019/09/2019-visible-bird-migration-reports.html

Yes it turned out a great morning having at last manage to find more Autumn Gentians. None were at my regular sites which this year like last year all recorded NIL, but a little further to the East and I was surprised to find at least a further 10 specimens at the side of about 100 yard of track which all turned out to be the rare northern sub species SEPTENTRIONALIS. The best area had 5 specimens and was in a slightly more acid deposit area than the others with more soil with rank grass between the plant and the limestone

This is a well and truly good find for me because I was about to think we were going to have yet another year without our little beauties the Autumn Gentians. I had previously searched all our known established sites and only turned up one specimen so far this year, but this morning I had time on my hands and so broadened my search to unknown territories and yo and behold there they were, at first odd ones scattered and then a little cluster of some 5 or so, as usual they were close to a well trodden footpath.