North Meadow, Cricklade
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North Meadow, Cricklade
North Meadow, Cricklade () is a hay meadow near the town of Cricklade, in Wiltshire, England. It is 24.6 hectares in size. It is a traditionally managed lowland hay-meadow, or ''lammas land'', and is grazed ''in common'' between 12 August and 12 February each year, and cut for hay no earlier than 1 July. This pattern of land use and management has existed for many centuries and has resulted in the species rich grassland flora and fauna present on the site. Over 250 species of higher plant occur in the meadow, but it is of particular note as it holds by far the largest British population of the snake's-head fritillary (''Fritillaria meleagris''). The 500,000 fritillaries which flower each year represent 80% of the British population. History The meadow is situated between two rivers, the Thames and the Churn, and the unique habitat for the fritillary was created by regular winter flooding. Such meadows were once common in Britain, but with the advent of modern farming many were dra ...
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Lolium Perenne
''Lolium perenne'', common name perennial ryegrass, English ryegrass, winter ryegrass, or ray grass, is a grass from the family Poaceae. It is native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa, but is widely cultivated and naturalised around the world. Description The plant is a low-growing, tufted, hairless grass, with a bunching (or tillering) growth habit. The leaves are dark green, smooth and glossy on the lower surface, with untoothed parallel sides and prominent parallel veins on the upper surface. The leaves are folded lengthwise in bud (unlike the rolled leaves of Italian ryegrass, ''Lolium multiflorum'') with a strong central keel, giving a flattened appearance. The ligule is very short and truncated and often difficult to see. The small white auricles grip the stem at the base of the leaf blade. Leaf sheaths at the base are usually tinged pink and hairless. Stems grow up to 90 cm. The inflorescence is unbranched, with spikelets on alternating sides edgeways-on to the ...
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Ranunculus Acris
''Ranunculus acris'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Ranunculaceae, and is one of the more common buttercups across Europe and temperate Eurasia. Common names include meadow buttercup, tall buttercup, common buttercup and giant buttercup. Description ''Ranunculus acris'' is a herbaceous perennial plant that grows to a height of 30 to 70 cm, with ungrooved flowing stems bearing glossy yellow flowers about 25 mm across. There are five overlapping petals borne above five green sepals that soon turn yellow as the flower matures. It has numerous stamens inserted below the ovary. The leaves are compound, with three-lobed leaflets. Unlike ''Ranunculus repens'', the terminal leaflet is sessile. As with other members of the genus, the numerous seeds are borne as achenes. The rare autumn buttercup (''R. aestivalis'') is sometimes treated as a variety of this species. The juice of the plant is semi-poisonous to livestock, causing blistering. Distribution The pla ...
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Lychnis Flos-cuculi
''Silene flos-cuculi'' (syn. ''Lychnis flos-cuculi''), commonly called ragged-robin, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. This species is native to Europe and Asia, where it is found along roads and in wet meadows and pastures. In Britain it has declined in numbers because of modern farming techniques and draining of wet-lands and is no longer common. However, it has become naturalized in parts of the northern United States and eastern Canada. Description ''Silene flos-cuculi'' forms a rosette of low growing foliage with numerous flower stems 20 to 90 cm tall. The stems rise above the foliage and branch near the top of the stem and end with the pink flowers which are 3–4 cm across. The flowers have five narrow petals deeply divided into four lobes giving the flower an untidy, ragged appearance, hence its common name. The calyx tube is five-toothed with ten stamens. The leaves are paired, with the lower leaves spoon-shaped and stalked. The ...
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Thalictrum Flavum
''Thalictrum flavum'', known by the common names common meadow-rue, poor man's rhubarb, and yellow meadow-rue,Peder Skou is a flowering plant species in the family Ranunculaceae. It is a native to Caucasus and Russia (Siberia). Growing to tall by broad, it is an herbaceous perennial producing clusters of fluffy yellow fragrant flowers in summer. Description ''Thalictrum flavum'' has fibrous roots,Samuel F. Gray and wedge-shaped, dark green leaves, with a paler green underneath; they are divided into multiple sections. It blooms between June and August. The flowers are composed of short sepals and longer, erect stamens. The sepals are actually white, but the multiple erect, yellow stamens, give the flower a yellow appearance. Later, three fruits are formed from each flower head. Phytochemistry The plant contains an enzyme called pavine ''N''-methyltransferase, which modifies a variety of benzylisoquinoline alkaloids including the eponymous alkaloid pavine. Benzylisoquinol ...
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Ophioglossum Vulgatum
''Ophioglossum vulgatum'', commonly known as adder's-tongue, southern adders-tongue or adders-tongue fern, is a species of fern in the family ''Ophioglossaceae''. The adder’s tongue fern is generally believed to have the largest number of chromosomes wit1262 compared to the human’s 46. Distribution It is native to many regions with a wide scattered distribution: throughout temperate through tropical Africa and throughout the temperate Northern Hemisphere in Europe, northeastern North America, temperate Asia, and Eurasia. This small, hard-to-spot plant can occur singly in unimproved pastures, rock crevices and grassy path-sides, but also can occur in colonies of hundreds of plants in sand dunes. Description ''Ophioglossum vulgatum'' grows from a rhizome base to 10–20 cm tall (rarely to 30 cm). It consists of a two-part frond, separated into a rounded diamond-shaped sheath and narrow spore-bearing spike. The spike has around 10-40 segments on each side. It repro ...
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Centaurea Nigra
''Centaurea nigra'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names lesser knapweed, common knapweed and black knapweed. A local vernacular name is hardheads. It is native to Europe but it is known on other continents as an introduced species and often a noxious weed. Although the plant is often unwanted by landowners because it is considered a weed by many, it provides a great deal of nectar for pollinators. It was rated in the top five for most nectar production (nectar per unit cover per year) in a UK plants survey. It also placed second as a producer of nectar sugar per floral unit, among the meadow perennials, in another study in Britain. Description It is a herbaceous perennial growing up to about a metre in height. The leaves are up to long, usually deeply lobed, and hairy. The lower leaves are stalked, whilst the upper ones are stalkless. The inflorescence contains a few flower heads, each a hemisphere of black or brown bristly ph ...
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Sanguisorba Officinalis
''Sanguisorba officinalis'', commonly known as great burnet, is a plant in the family Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae. It is native throughout the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere in Europe, northern Asia, and northern North America. It is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 1 m tall, which occurs in grasslands, growing well on grassy banks. It flowers June or July. ''Sanguisorba officinalis'' is an important food plant for the European large blue butterflies '' Phengaris nausithous'' and '' P. teleius''.World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1996. . Downloaded on 6 October 2010 Commercial uses Use is made of its extensive root system for erosion control, as well as a bioremediator, used to reclaim derelict sites such as landfills. Ornamental ''Sanguisorba officinalis'' is one of several ''Sanguisorba'' species cultivated as ornamental plants. The cultivar 'Tanna' is widely available, and has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. The synonym ' ...
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Rhinanthus Minor
''Rhinanthus minor'', known as yellow rattle, is a herbaceous wildflower in the genus ''Rhinanthus'' in the family (biology), family Orobanchaceae (the broomrapes). It has circumpolar distribution in Europe, Russia, western Asia, and northern North America. An annual plant, yellow rattle grows up to tall, with upright stems and opposite, simple leaves. The fruit is a dry capsule (fruit), capsule, with loose, rattling seeds. The preferred habitat of ''Rhinanthus minor'' is dry fields or meadows; it tolerates a wide range of soil types. It flowers in the summer between May and September. It is parasitic plant, hemiparasitic, notably on Poaceae (grasses) and Fabaceae (legumes), and farmers consider it to be a pest, as it reduces grass growth. Yellow rattle is used to create or restore wildflower meadows, where it maintains species diversity by suppressing dominant grasses and the recycling of soil nutrients. The seed is sown thinly onto grassland from August to November—to germ ...
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Silaum Silaus
''Silaum silaus'', commonly known as pepper-saxifrage, is a perennial plant in the family Apiaceae (Umbelliferae) (the carrot family) found across south-eastern, central, and western Europe, including the British Isles. It grows in damp grasslands on neutral soils. Description ''Silaum silaus'' is an erect, glabrous umbellifer with woody, stout and cylindrical tap roots, which are hot and aromatic. ''S. silaus'' has dark grey or black petioles at the top; petiole remains are found at the bottom of the stem, which is solid and striate. Its umbels are 2–6 cm in diameter, are terminal or axillary, and compound, with 4 to 15 angled rays of 1–3 cm; the peduncle is larger than the rays, and both are papillose. The flowers are mostly hermaphroditic. ''Silaum silaus'' has 2–4-pinnate leaves, which have a triangular and lanceolate outline, a long petiole and the primary divisions are long-stalked. Segments are 10–15 mm long, shaped from lanceolate to lin ...
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Hordeum Brachyantherum
''Hordeum brachyantherum'', known by the common name meadow barley, is a species of barley. It is native to western North America from Alaska to northern Mexico, coastal areas of easternmost Russia (Kamchatka), and a small area of coastal Newfoundland. The diploid cytotype occurs only in California, throughout the state, while everywhere else plants are tetraploid. This is a tufting perennial bunchgrass approaching a meter in maximum height. It produces compact, narrow inflorescences 8 to 10 centimeters long and purplish in color. Like other barleys the spikelets come in triplets. It has two small, often sterile lateral spikelets on pedicels and a larger, fertile central spikelet lacking a pedicel. General information ''Hordeum brachyantherum'' belongs to grass family, Poaceae, genus ''Hordeum''. There are two common cytotypes of ''Hordeum brachyantherum''. The diploid mainly grow in California, the tetraploid grow widely over the world. Polyploidy is very common in plants. Po ...
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Bromus Commutatus
''Bromus commutatus'', the meadow brome, is an annual or biennial species of plant in the grass family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ... Poaceae. In the United States it is known as hairy chess. Description The height ranges from 40 to . The panicle is 7–20 cm, usually nodding and often spreading, but erect as first.Fitter, Page 74 The leaf-sheaths are hairy, the upper are usually hairless. ''B. commutatus'' is stouter than '' B. racemosus'', the smooth brome, with a flower-head not drooping to one side and a broader elongated branched flower head. Meadow brome structure File:Node on Bromus commutatus.JPG, Node structure File:Detail of Bromus commutatus panicle.JPG, Panicle detail File:Bromus commutatus spikelets.JPG, Spikelets detail Habitat and distr ...
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