Hawkweeds

The mapping/accounts page is here.

Species-accounts from A Flora of Cumbria (1997), for species which are covered therein, appear below the map. 62 species appear in A Flora of Cumbria; 138 are currently recorded.

BSBI Referee for the genus Brian Burrow has very kindly offered comments for a number of species where the taxonomy has advanced from the accounts in A Flora of Cumbria. These are attributed in the ‘Current comments’ pane as ‘[BB]’. Comments attributed as [JR], or lacking attribution, are by Jeremy Roberts. Further comments will be added in due course.

 A Flora of Cumbria (1997): introduction and key

‘As novices, provokingly ignorant of hawkweed problems, and without a description of decolor (it is not indexed in Linton’s work and so we missed it) we ran this plant down to H. Leyi and feel encouraged. But what a liquid genus must Hieracium be if a plant can be put back into a ‘better hole’ behind fifty intervening species (see Lond. Cat.) without the ruffling of a ligule!’
Bucknall & White, BEC Rpt (1920) 5:827

No serious attempt was made during the Survey to investigate the hawkweed flora until 1985 although numerous specimens had been collected, in a rather desultory way, during the previous ten years. Since then, much additional material has been accumulated and, together with specimens seen at BM and CGE, considerably more information is now available than ever before. Preparation of this account has revealed a number of errors in the Critical Atlas, errors arising from misplaced dots, omissions and misidentifications. A particularly acute problem has been the unrealistically large number of species previously reported from some sites. Familiarity with the plants in the wild suggests that environmental variation is of more significance than is generally allowed for; it also engenders healthy caution in relying too much on leaf-spotting. For all its undoubted shortcomings this account at least sets out the current position and indicates the nature of the remaining unsolved problems. Considerable help was received during the early years of this study from P.D. Sell and J. Bevan. and latterly from D. McCosh, who has seen the bulk of the herbarium material. Ultimate responsibility for the taxonomic conclusions must, however, rest with the author.
As with Rubus, earlier published accounts, for example Ley & Linton (1905) as well as the previous Floras, pose serious problems of interpretation. This account is therefore based entirely on Survey material and herbarium specimens. With the exception of the rarer species, records prior to the Survey ones are only given where they are from additional 10 km squares.
The account lists 62 species which are considered to occur or to have occurred in the county. Although seven fewer than are shown in the Critical Atlas, this number still leaves Cumbria with by far the largest hawkweed flora of any county south of the Scottish Highlands. Much remains to be done. There is at least one possible new species which requires further study and many unvisited crags and gullies still beckon. The upland hawkweeds have undoubtedly declined considerably this century, chiefly as a consequence of ever-increasing sheep stocking, but it is encouraging that the Survey rediscovered the elusive Hieracium itunense and, briefly, H. mirandum, failing only with H. subintegrifolium. These last two species should now be considered extinct.

The following key is an attempt to facilitate identification of most of the species seen during the Survey.