Wildflowers are important as just one species can support a whole ecosystem from fungi and invertebrates, through insect-eating birds and small mammals, to birds of prey. They are key habitats for pollinators such as bees and butterflies, whose numbers have seen huge declines in recent years. There are almost 251,000 acres of rural road verges across the country that are home to 703 species of wild plants – 87 of which are facing extinction. Charity Plantlife says local councils are “cutting too much and too early”, depriving flowers of the chance to seed and reproduce. It wants the first cutting, which is currently taking place in May or June, to be delayed until late July, and for councils to manage verges for wildlife in a way that would encourage wildflowers.
“It all boils down to a change of management,” says Dr Trevor Dines, botanical specialist at Plantlife. “Yes, the verges need management and you have to have an annual cut, but what we’re finding is species being mown down in their prime. There is a battle on either side of the hedge – we’ve already lost the battle on the farmers’ side, now we are starting to lose it on the road side too. There is a sense of summer being removed from our roadsides.”
“A huge number of species use these plants. The common birds-foot trefoil, for example, which has a lovely pea-like flower, can provide food for more than 160 different types of invertebrates,” says Dines. “Plants are the energy house of all other species – if we get that mixture of plants back we get diversity with everything else.”
Britain has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s as land has been turned over to grow food crops. Rural roadside verges and small, family-owned farms remain the only places left for species such as the crested cow-wheat, spiked rampion and man orchid to thrive. These roadside verges represent the last stronghold of British wildflowers yet they are being mown down by local councils because of budgetary pressures and a lack of guidance, conservationists have warned.
Source: The Guardian, 18 September 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/18/wildflowers-verges-…
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