I Love Arnside and Silverdale

A few days ago (August 5th) I went over on Holme Stinted Pastures to check out some of the Autumn and Field Gentians. It's already noticeable that it will be a stonker of a year for Gentians, they are coming through strong and everywhere and some really good examples already beginning to show!

It's about time because we have had a couple of lean years!

Here are a couple of photos showing the current position. I'll bet we have flowers starting to show by weekend.

On Saturday last (August 8th), I had a walk up through Lancelot Clark Storth (CWT), because I wanted to check out a few Broad Leaved Helleborines whilst at the same time checking out one of our rare Southern Polypody sites and show a couple of photos below.

Sadly the helleborines at this particular population are not doing well in numbers and down from 20 to 3. Here below is a sketch of what it was like back in 2013

This is our 15s population which did originally have lots of purpurea specimens, you can see we did have up to 20 specimens in this particular population. Well it was down to 3 plants on Saturday last of which none bore "purpurea".

Nearby this population (above) is one of our rare Southern Polypody ferns (Polypodium cambricum) which lies about one metre down in the gryke. I noticed although the plants are quite recent (from July on), a lot of them bore signs of being predated with bits chomped off. It surprised me that anything would climb down so far. Here are a couple of photos, a sunny day and not the best day too much shadow.

I'll tell you what did come as a surprise! and I cannot think of any occasion when I have seen this in the past, but did notice some of the more common polypody (Polygonatum vulgare), growing down in a gryke, you may make it out in the next photo's below. This is for me definate first! I only usually see it growing out of trees or walls but never Grykes (until now).

“I always wanted to find a

Helleborine “led” hybrid (E.helleborine x E.atrorubens)

So now I can see the hybrid from both dimensions

I’ve already seen plenty of the others
(E.atrorubens x E.helleborine)"

When you have 223 E.helleborines and 800 E.atrorubens lying almost next to one another in such a small area as 650x500 metre why on earth would you not expect HYBRIDS between species in the same family genus!
Variance of helleborine maybe one thing,
but introgression is a totally different concept.

If I was asked to describe it I would call it Dark Brown stemmed, although I guess you could say also that it may be a dark green stemmed plant, and it is very difficult to establish a true colour between the two, also it should be noted that you do see some lighter green bleeding through in places but that is occasional rather than regular. So perhaps better that the reference be made to "Dark Stemmed" rather than a specific colour.

The ovaries to all specimens seem to be dark and of a mixed brownish to greenish in general colour and showing a dark striping like variagation of sorts. The ovaries seem to be generally hairy in this hybrid and far more than you would expect in any regular helleborine, but more so to the darker parts of the ovary rib whilst the lighter parts seem to be more glabrous. Also I have noticed that the peduncels are generally ranging in colour between a dark brown to almost a deep purple and they again are very hairy.

All these dark specimens lie within a area of about 50 metres diameter approx and are intermingled with nearby regular classic helleborines together with many varietal forms and all the dark stemmed have reasonable distances between one another. I am not aware of anymore of these dark stemmed specimens anywhere else on Hutton Roof, although obviously this could be possible.

It was about four years ago that I first started to notice a single dark stemmed plant which I did then take to be a helleborine to the SW side of Burton Fell, I always held great suspicion of this plant that it could well have been a hybrid but never sure because of the colour and strange profile of the build. The plant has been given the designation of 70c, which 70 represents the area where it resides and "c" denotes its the fourth plant of interest within that area. This plant has come through annually since 2016, but until this year 2020 I had never seen it in flower, for it always seem to fall victim to predation and prematurely lost its inflorescence before flowering, but this year I managed to get it caged and the result is at long last I have seen typical helleborine flowers from it. I will go into the studies and photo's of this plant later.

Specimen 70c

4th August 2020

Note: Stem colour top dark brown bottom dark green.

The above photo is probably one of the best examples you will ever see in regards to introgression from both sides making up a typical hybrid (eg: duel coloured stem). The dark usually associated with Epipactis atrorubens and the light feature usually associated with the Epipactis helleborine.

If you look through all the specimens above you will see this dual introgression colouring appearing on most of the specimens I have found with some showing the mixed colour in a repetitive order within the same stem eg: dark, light and dark again. Sometimes the colours will mix completely and show different shades of dark brown through to dark green.

Usually hairiness within the stem is associated more with atroruben than helleborine, with hairiness seen plentiful on the atroruben whilst the helleborine also shows hairs but little to no hair at all (Glabrous). I usually refer to this minimal hairiness like you see in the above photo as having a look of "frost".

This is showing SW8 above
and gives a good example to the hairiness of the plant,
especially noted on the stem, ovaries and peduncels.

On this specimen (above) you see that the stem and the ovaries and pedicels are all very hairy and with the hairiness more pronounced within the darker parts of the ovary which appears to show a variagation of sorts. The greener divisions or stripes of the ovary appear to be far more glabrous and relate more to a probable helleborine introgression.

Also again you see variation within the stem colour alternating between a darkened brown and the lighter green. Normally I would expect the pedicels to be a light brown in the classic helleborine, whilst here they show far more darker intensity and perhaps bordering on a almost purple colour, again probably another factor of introgression but this time from the atroruben.

The first plant we have so far diagnosed to be a probable hybrid is called SW7 and its photos are shown below.

Specimen SW7 (probable hybrid)