New Year flower count 2016

I've just heard back from the BSBI about their New Year plant hunt. The idea was to count wild plants in flower in a three-hour period over the New Year weekend. They have accepted my list of 21 species (from west central Scotland) found on 2nd January, so I'm rather belatedly listing them here. A few weeks later, after several days of frost and snow, many of these are no longer flowering. Most were either plants that can flower all year round or that normally flower into autumn and had survived the mild winter until New Year.

Unfortunately it was a very dull day and many of the plants were in a patch of waste ground that I could only view at a distance through wire netting, so it was far from ideal for photography.

Arabidopsis thaliana (Thale Cress)

Bellis perennis (Daisy)









Capsella bursa-pastoris (Shepherd's-purse)

Cardamine flexuosa (Wavy Bitter-cress)







Cerastium glomeratum (Sticky Mouse-ear)

Crepis capillaris (Smooth Hawksbeard)

Cymbalaria muralis (Ivy-leaved Toadflax)

Euphorbia peplus (Petty Spurge)











Fumaria officinalis (Common Fumitory)

Geum urbanum (Wood Avens)







Heracleum sphondylium (Hogweed)
Matricaria discoidea (Pineappleweed)

Myosotis arvensis (Field Forget-me-not)

Ornithopus perpusillus (Bird's-foot)

Poa annua (Annual Meadow-grass)

Ranunculus repens (Creeping Buttercup)










Senecio vulgaris (Groundsel)
Taraxacum officinale agg. (Dandelion)

Tripleurospermum inodorum (Scentless Mayweed)










Ulex europaeus (Gorse)
Veronica persica (Common Field-speedwell)


The following day I also found Erophila verna agg. (Common Whitlow Grass), but it didn't count as it wasn't within the three-hour period - a pity as it would have been the only true spring flower although I have found it flowering in almost every month of the year.