The new target: 2020 to 2039!
The recording we achieved for the BSBI Atlas 2020 project is now complete! The data are all incorporated into the national Distribution Database (the ‘DDb’).
That means we have now begun the process of recording the county’s flora ‘anew’. Any recording done in these early years of the 2020–2039 cycle will ease the (surely inevitable!) urgency towards the end of the cycle – such as we experienced in more recent years leading up to the end of 2019.
Data entry
Records were collected as follows (data from BSBI distribution database):
2020
22,583 (in 679 monads)
2021
19,557 (in 369 monads)
2022
26,304 (in 660 monads)
2023
28,837 (in 1023 monads)
Total 2020~2023
98,117 (in 2213 monads, out of total ~ 7420 monads)
Accounts and maps archived below are from the lead-up to the end of the last cycle.
~~~~~~~~~~ Archive ~~~~~~~~~~~
The tetrad map below shows the position (for vice-counties 69 and 70 only) at the date given, and is updated at intervals. Note that only tetrads with fifty or more species recorded have a symbol.
After prodigious efforts by our team over this last season, there are only 28 tetrads without a ‘50+ dot’, and these are all marginal (i.e. coastal, or across county boundaries, and hence with less than a 4 sq. km area, often much less, within vice-counties 69 and 70).
This is a position that might have seemed impossible for us to achieve, looking at the state of recording just a couple of years ago! (See the maps below.) Many thanks to everyone who contributed records from 2019 and from previous years.
(In 2019 Phill – as well as inputting very many thousands of our records (over 100,000 so far?), a huge contribution of time and effort – has himself gathered a quarter of these! We are deeply indebted to him! – JR)
The maps below show the position as it was before each of the recording seasons 2019, 2018, 2017:
The diversity of vascular plant species in the county increases somewhat from north to south, but is also obviously very dependent on altitude, soil-type, land-use, presence of river-courses, etc. A typical lowland tetrad in this part of the planet with a reasonable range of habitats should reveal at least 250–300 species after a thorough survey, with visits through the season. In southern Cumbria, this may rise to over 400.
Although the highest ground has a very limited range, at the scale of the tetrad most squares will have some lower ground with much greater diversity. This is more true of the Lake District mountains with their deeply dissected topography; some plateau areas of the high northern Pennines lie at middle to high altitudes throughout.
[⇠⇠ Back to Recording Cumbria’s Flora…]
Hi. I’m from VC55(Leics and Rutland) and will be living in Workington until the middle of May. I’ve spoken to Mike, and he suggests I join this group as a temporary member, and he will be sorting some squares for me to record whilst I’m up here. I look forward to hopefully meeting up with some of you in the near future.
All the best,
Richard Mabbutt VC55 botanical recorder.
Hi Richard – I think you’ve had some good responses to this on the FB page, which I hope have given you some ideas.
BTW – I had earlier said I’d have a look at that polypody specimen of yours for an ID if you’re interested. Cheers, Jeremy.