Botanic Rarity Settles Down Next To 2012 Olympic Site
THE DOG WALKERS ARE OUT IN FORCE on east London's Walthamstow Marshes.
They step across the neatly-laid duckboards of the flood meadow, keeping their trainers clean.
Packs of mountain bikers whirr along a shingle track by the River Lea.
Most are happy to splash through a pothole at ten miles an hour.
Some turn up the speed and scare the walkers.
Canal boats phut past, breaking up islets of debris.
THESE MARSHES ARE A TINY part of the Lee Valley regional park, which was set up by a 1967 act of parliament to develop recreational and nature conservancy opportunities.
The velodrome for the 2012 Olympics will soon be open for business at one edge of the regional park and just across the road from here, Hackney's east marsh will be concreted over to build parking space for cars and coaches - a decision unpopularwith the Hackney marsh user group.
But at the opposite end of the Lee Valley, reclusive wintering bittern will still be hiding in their reed beds - at a safe distance from the public.
'Fisher's Green is one of the best places in the country to see bittern,' confirms Lee Valley park biodiversity officer Simon Wightman, 'and we're an internationally important site for gadwell and shovelers [sic].
' ON JULY THE 18TH, 2002 CONSULTANT ECOLOGIST Brian Wurzell was working on a Walthamstow Marshes species list when he found 'three tiny, immature scraps of a plant growing below a ditch-bank'.
Wurzell could hardly believe what he was looking at.
He wanted to believe that he had just discovered Britain's second colony of the critically endangered creeping marshwort, (Apium repens) previously recorded at just one other site - an Oxfordshire flood meadow.
When the plant's first-ever flower appeared in September, it confirmed Wurzell's identification: creeping marshwort has four or five bracts, compared to the otherwise similar fool's watercress, with only one.
'When I finally saw the flowers,' Wurzell says, 'I knew that was it.
The discovery knocked me for six.
' Wurzell's trained eye had spotted this rarity only metres from the busiest part of the marshes, at the rough but loveable edge of the most populated city in Europe.
Fortunately for creeping marshwort, this part of Walthamstow Marshes is one of English Nature's sites of special scientific interest, whose habitats are carefully watched-over by teams of experts.
In autumn 2002, Wurzell and Lee Valley park together drew up an emergency action plan to increase suitable habitat.
In March 2003, park ranger David Miller's team re-dug the profile of a ditch close to where creeping marshwort was first found.
'Behind the ditch,' Miller explains, 'we excavated a shallow slope, and then carefully scraped away soil to expose the underlying seed-bed.
' UNTIL ABOUT A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, cattle were a common sight on Walthamstow marshes.
They were allowed to graze here between old Lammas Day on the 13th of August and Lady Day on the sixth of April.
In 2003, rare breeds were re-introduced to the marshes between late summer and December.
It might seem surprising that these indelicate herbivores were critical to achieving the second part of the habitat management plan for creeping marshwort.
'The cattle go for the most vigorous vegetation first,' explains Brian Wurzell.
'A greater diversity of plants, especially annuals and lower-growing perennials, can now thrive in the space that would normally be choked by coarser species.
' And David Miller adds another important role for the herd: 'what's called the 'poaching' action of the hooves enables plants to seed and root in the hoof-print left behind.
And the hooves re-distribute fragments which can reproduce vegetatively.
' These habitat-management tactics are working.
According to Brian Wurzell, creeping marshwort is now growing in 'large, vigorous patches' It's come a long way in three years.
Three species new to the marshes have emerged from the new seed bed since 2003 alone: blunt-flowered rush, brookweed and round-fruited rush.
PASSERS BY FREQUENTLY STOP TO LOOK at the cattle, universally popular with a London public for whom livestock sightings are a rarity.
The tiny Black Dexter is dwarfed by a fierce-looking English Longhorn and Belted Galloways.
On hot summer days, the herd lopes towards the shade of a tree by the marshy fringes of a ditch.
Fortunately for creeping marshwort, nobody is in hurry to disturb its habitat by grubbing around in the corner of what looks like any other field covered in cowpats.
Indeed, if they could see this tiny plant, many would write it off as unspectacular.
The British love wildlife - so long as it moves and is colourful, dangerous or cute.
Most visitors are probably more interested in looking out for the terrapins that occasionally surface in the river nearby.
Walthamstow marshes are no Madagascar, but it beggars belief that this botanic rarity re-emerged so close to some of the most expensive real estate in London.
Alistair Siddons ©2006
They step across the neatly-laid duckboards of the flood meadow, keeping their trainers clean.
Packs of mountain bikers whirr along a shingle track by the River Lea.
Most are happy to splash through a pothole at ten miles an hour.
Some turn up the speed and scare the walkers.
Canal boats phut past, breaking up islets of debris.
THESE MARSHES ARE A TINY part of the Lee Valley regional park, which was set up by a 1967 act of parliament to develop recreational and nature conservancy opportunities.
The velodrome for the 2012 Olympics will soon be open for business at one edge of the regional park and just across the road from here, Hackney's east marsh will be concreted over to build parking space for cars and coaches - a decision unpopularwith the Hackney marsh user group.
But at the opposite end of the Lee Valley, reclusive wintering bittern will still be hiding in their reed beds - at a safe distance from the public.
'Fisher's Green is one of the best places in the country to see bittern,' confirms Lee Valley park biodiversity officer Simon Wightman, 'and we're an internationally important site for gadwell and shovelers [sic].
' ON JULY THE 18TH, 2002 CONSULTANT ECOLOGIST Brian Wurzell was working on a Walthamstow Marshes species list when he found 'three tiny, immature scraps of a plant growing below a ditch-bank'.
Wurzell could hardly believe what he was looking at.
He wanted to believe that he had just discovered Britain's second colony of the critically endangered creeping marshwort, (Apium repens) previously recorded at just one other site - an Oxfordshire flood meadow.
When the plant's first-ever flower appeared in September, it confirmed Wurzell's identification: creeping marshwort has four or five bracts, compared to the otherwise similar fool's watercress, with only one.
'When I finally saw the flowers,' Wurzell says, 'I knew that was it.
The discovery knocked me for six.
' Wurzell's trained eye had spotted this rarity only metres from the busiest part of the marshes, at the rough but loveable edge of the most populated city in Europe.
Fortunately for creeping marshwort, this part of Walthamstow Marshes is one of English Nature's sites of special scientific interest, whose habitats are carefully watched-over by teams of experts.
In autumn 2002, Wurzell and Lee Valley park together drew up an emergency action plan to increase suitable habitat.
In March 2003, park ranger David Miller's team re-dug the profile of a ditch close to where creeping marshwort was first found.
'Behind the ditch,' Miller explains, 'we excavated a shallow slope, and then carefully scraped away soil to expose the underlying seed-bed.
' UNTIL ABOUT A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, cattle were a common sight on Walthamstow marshes.
They were allowed to graze here between old Lammas Day on the 13th of August and Lady Day on the sixth of April.
In 2003, rare breeds were re-introduced to the marshes between late summer and December.
It might seem surprising that these indelicate herbivores were critical to achieving the second part of the habitat management plan for creeping marshwort.
'The cattle go for the most vigorous vegetation first,' explains Brian Wurzell.
'A greater diversity of plants, especially annuals and lower-growing perennials, can now thrive in the space that would normally be choked by coarser species.
' And David Miller adds another important role for the herd: 'what's called the 'poaching' action of the hooves enables plants to seed and root in the hoof-print left behind.
And the hooves re-distribute fragments which can reproduce vegetatively.
' These habitat-management tactics are working.
According to Brian Wurzell, creeping marshwort is now growing in 'large, vigorous patches' It's come a long way in three years.
Three species new to the marshes have emerged from the new seed bed since 2003 alone: blunt-flowered rush, brookweed and round-fruited rush.
PASSERS BY FREQUENTLY STOP TO LOOK at the cattle, universally popular with a London public for whom livestock sightings are a rarity.
The tiny Black Dexter is dwarfed by a fierce-looking English Longhorn and Belted Galloways.
On hot summer days, the herd lopes towards the shade of a tree by the marshy fringes of a ditch.
Fortunately for creeping marshwort, nobody is in hurry to disturb its habitat by grubbing around in the corner of what looks like any other field covered in cowpats.
Indeed, if they could see this tiny plant, many would write it off as unspectacular.
The British love wildlife - so long as it moves and is colourful, dangerous or cute.
Most visitors are probably more interested in looking out for the terrapins that occasionally surface in the river nearby.
Walthamstow marshes are no Madagascar, but it beggars belief that this botanic rarity re-emerged so close to some of the most expensive real estate in London.
Alistair Siddons ©2006
