Ilkley riverside

Friday 31st March 2023

Leader: Ian Brand

We reached the car park for Ilkley Lido on a rather drizzly Friday morning with 30 participants including five children. We made our way to the river looking at the plants by the path, finding Hairy Bitter-cress (Cardamine hirsuta) and Thale Cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) amongst others already in flower. When we reached the river we headed towards Ilkley town finding a few Wood Anenomes (Anemone nemorosa) in flower, and, after crossing the road, found the spectacular Yellow Star-of-Bethlehem (Gagea lutea) growing dotted around bare ground under the trees. I had seen it here many years ago, but it appears to have spread and now consists of a very fine colony. We then headed back the way we came, finding some nice bushes of Red Currant (Ribes rubrum) just in flower.

We were lucky to find a single stem of Toothwort (Lathraea squamaria) but, as with many of the flowers, we were rather early, which is probably why we saw so few violets. We saw a few Sweet Violets (Viola odorata) with white flowers and some rather nice Early Dog-violets (Viola reichenbachiana).

A few primroses were found including one with a branched inflorescence but with the native primrose flower colour. I thought it may have been Primula vulgaris var. caulescens but as it had rather large flowers, the consensus was that it was just a garden form of Primula x polyantha.

We passed numerous Daffodil cultivars (Narcissus agg.) which I could not name except a nice patch of some small flowered Narcissus ‘Tete-a-Tate’ growing near a rather bedraggled Hard Shield-fern (Polystichum aculeatum). After lunch, some of our party decided to return to their cars (the meeting had originally planned to finish at 1.30pm). About half the group decided to continue along the riverside, soon finding a nice bush of Oregon-grape (Mahonia aquifolium), probably originally a throw out from culivation.

Soon after, we left the river and turned up Carters Lane, later turning left again along a footpath running parallel to Denton Road. Here we found Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea) in flower and Anthony stopped us to look at a rather splended Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) with its dark pink flowers.

We then returned across a field to the road and continued back to the cars via Middleton Woods to see the leaves of Thin-spiked Wood-sedge (Carex strigosa). On exiting the wood, we saw numerous fruiting spikes of Great Horsetail (Equisetum telmateia).

There was a final walk into Ilkley for a cup of coffee and on the way we found Atlas Poppy (Papaver atlanticum) on the verge, almost in flower. We got back to the cars with the time way passed 4pm. We were lucky with the weather, with it turning out to be a rather cloudy day with just a few spots of rain and lots of nice plants.

Text by Jesse

Photographs by Ian B, Jesse and Susan