The Stellario-Carpinetum of Broxbourne Woods, Herts

Omg botanist FAIL 😆

"These eyes of mine need to see some bluebells" thought I. So off to Broxbourne Woods NNR I trotted for some Hertfordshire hornbeam wood delights.

UNFORTUNATELY FOR MY EYES I HAD FORGETTON ONE IMPORTANT THING.

The Wormley-Hoddesdon-Broxbourne Woods SAC complex hosts the Internationally Important, Annex 1 variant of the Herts Hornbeam Wood, "9160 Sub Atlantic and Medio-European Oak or Hornbeam Forests of the Carpinion betuli"

This variant of hornbeam wood (the Stellario-Carpinetum) is restricted to Herts and Essex and is closer in nature to continental variants than the Atlantic Endymio-Carpinetum type, which is more widespread in the UK.

The HILARIOUS part is that whilst the Endymio-Carpinetum is packed chock full of bluebells, the Stellario-Carpinetum is characterised by its VIRTUAL ABSENCE OF BLUEBELLS.

So obviously mine eyes saw NO BLUEBELLS.

What a FOOL of a Took 😆😆🤣

But t'was no wasted trip. I got a nice suite of photos demonstrating how this has a very different character from the bluebell version.

Here, the the vernal ground flora was dominated very much by wood anenome (Anenome nemorosa). Hairy wood rush (Luzula pilosella) and greater stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) were frequent with occassional tussucks of tufted hair grass (Deschampsia caespitosa) and a fair bit of pendulous and wood sedge (Carex pendula/sylvatica. Also, the bryophyte suite is distinctive with abundant Mnium hornum and frequent Polytrichum formosum and Hypnum cupressiform being fairly standard for Herts Woods in general but here joined by a continental suite of several from the Dicranum genus.

Conforms under the NVC to W10 oak, bramble, bracken Woods and different parts of the SAC contain both the sessile and pendunculate oak-hornbeam variants.

But which sub community? This question is causing me great emotional turmoil.

It could be an example of a hornbeam dominant stand of the Anenome nemorosa sub community (in which hornbeam is usually scarce) but it's got a lot of Holcus mollis, which is meant to be less frequent. The Typical sub community is described as sometimes resembling Continental Carpinion high forest and is a likely candidate as it is in essence an oakwood with hornbeam coppice.

The picture is complicated further by the fact the soils get more calcareous to the north in Broxbourne Woods which places the Anenome nemorosa sub-community of W8 ash maple woodlands in the picture! I do recall seeing a lot of maple and a lil hawthorn in the underwood, so could be on to something there....

I tried asking Chat GPT who basically told me to bugger off and do my own NVC survey 🤣

Tomorrow I plan to go to the Endymio carpinetum version in WGC. 😁