The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. It is mostly in northern Derbyshire, but includes parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. An area of diversity, it is usually split into the Dark Peak, where most moorland is found and the geology is gritstone, and the White Peak, a limestone area, known for valleys and gorges that cut through the limestone plateau. The Dark Peak forms an arc on the north, east and west sides; the White Peak makes up the central and southern tracts. It became the United Kingdom's first national park in 1951. Proximity to Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Derby and Sheffield brings millions of urban visitors every year. It is thought that 20 million people live within an hour's journey.
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire, containing the southern extremity of the Pennine range of hills which extend into the north of the county. The county contains part of the National Forest, and borders on Greater Manchester to the north-west, West Yorkshire to the north, South Yorkshire to the north-east, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the west and south-west and Cheshire also to the west. Kinder Scout, at 636 metres (2,087 ft), is the highest point in the county, whilst Trent Meadows, where the River Trent leaves Derbyshire, is its lowest point at 27 metres (89 ft). The River Derwent is the county's longest river at 66 miles (106 km), and runs roughly north to south through the county. In 2003 the Ordnance Survey placed Church Flatts Farm at Coton in the Elms as the farthest point from the sea in Great Britain. The city of Derby is a unitary authority area, but remains part of the ceremonial county of Derbyshire. The non-metropolitan county contains 30 towns with 10,000–100,000 inhabitants. There is much sparsely populated agricultural upland.
Hieracium , known by the common name hawkweed and classically as hierakion, is a genus of the sunflower (Helianthus) family Asteraceae), and closely related to dandelion (Taraxacum), chicory (Cichorium), prickly lettuce (Lactuca) and sow thistle (Sonchus), which are part of the tribe Cichorieae. Hawkweeds, with their 10,000+ recorded species and subspecies, do their part to make Asteraceae the second largest family of flowers. Some botanists group all these species or subspecies into approximately 800 accepted species, while others prefer to accept several thousand species. Since most hawkweeds reproduce exclusively asexually by means of seeds that are genetically identical to their mother plant, clones or populations that consist of genetically identical plants are formed and some botanists prefer to accept these clones as good species whereas others try to group them into a few hundred more broadly defined species. What is here treated as the single genus Hieracium is now treated by most European experts as two different genera, Hieracium and Pilosella, with species such as Hieracium pilosella, Hieracium floribundum and Hieracium aurantiacum referred to the latter genus. Many members of the genus Pilosella reproduce both by stolons and by seeds, whereas true Hieracium species reproduce only by seeds. In Pilosella, many individual plants are capable of forming both normal sexual and asexual (apomictic) seeds, whereas individual plants of Hieracium only produce one kind of seeds. Another difference is that all species of Pilosella have leaves with smooth (entire) margins whereas most species of Hieracium have distinctly dentate to deeply cut or divided leaves.
A dry roadside dotted with small, ¾ inch red orange flowers, interspersed with very similar yellow ones, and often the white of daisies, is a good sign that you are in Hawkweed country.
Pilosella officinarum, known as mouse-ear hawkweed, is a yellow-flowered species of flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae, native to Europe and northern Asia. It produces single, lemon-coloured inflorescences. Like most hawkweed species, it is highly variable and is a member of a species complex of several dozens of subspecies and hundreds of varieties and forms. It is an allelopathic plant.
Ophrys insectifera, the fly orchid, is a species of orchid and the type species of the genus Ophrys. It is remarkable as an example of sexually-deceptive pollination and floral mimicry as well as of a highly-selective and highly evolved plant-pollinator relationship.
The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) is a scientific society for the study of flora, plant distribution and taxonomy relating to Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. The society was founded as the Botanical Society of London in 1836, and became the Botanical Society of the British Isles, eventually changing to its current name in 2013. It includes both professional and amateur members and is the largest organisation devoted to botany in the British Isles. Its history is recounted in David Allen's book The Botanists.
The United Kingdom Biodiversity Action Plan or (UK BAP) was the UK government's response to the Convention on Biological Diversity, opened for signature at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The UK was the first country to produce a national Biodiversity Action Plan. It was published in 1994 and created action plans for priority species and habitats in the UK that were most under threat so as to support their recovery.
Winnats Pass is a hill pass and limestone gorge in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. The name is a corruption of 'wind gates' due to the swirling winds through the pass. It lies west of the village of Castleton, in the National Trust's High Peak Estate and the High Peak borough of Derbyshire. The road winds through a cleft, surrounded by high limestone ridges. At the foot of the pass is the entrance to Speedwell Cavern, a karst cave accessed through a flooded lead mine, and which is a popular tourist attraction.
Hieracium umbellatum, the Canadian hawkweed, Canada hawkweed, narrowleaf hawkweed, or northern hawkweed, is a flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae.
Pilosella caespitosa is like several other Pilosella species and has a similar appearance to many of the hawkweeds.
Radyr hawkweed is the common name of Hieracium radyrense, a very rare endemic species restricted to Radyr in south Wales, UK. First identified in 1907 it was described as a variety in 1948 and a species in 1955. and belongs to Hieracium section Vulgata. It has rarely been seen and surveys between 1998 and 2004 indicate that only one population of about 25 plants survives.
Vandenboschia speciosa, synonym Trichomanes speciosum, commonly known as the Killarney fern, is a species of fern found widely in Western Europe. It is most abundant in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Brittany, Galicia, Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores, but is also found in other locations including France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. It is a relict endemic European species with a disjunct distribution, having had a much wider distribution before the climate changes of the Tertiary and Quaternary periods.
Trinia glauca (Honewort) is a low-growing umbellifer found in rocky areas.
Potamogeton compressus is a species of aquatic plant known by the common names grass-wrack pondweed, flatstem pondweed and eel-grass pondweed.
Rev. William Richardson Linton, Corpus Christi College, M.A., was an English botanist and vicar of the parish of Shirley, Derbyshire. He was regarded as one of the leading batologists of his day.
Potamogeton acutifolius is a European species of aquatic plant in the family Potamogetonaceae, known by the common name sharp-leaved pondweed. It is threatened and declining in at least part of its range.
Hieracium traillii is a species of hawkweed known by the common name Maryland hawkweed.
Hieracium longiberbe, known by the common name longbeard hawkweed, is a rare North American plant species in the dandelion tribe within the sunflower family. It has been found only in the Columbia River Gorge along the border between the states of Washington and Oregon in the northwestern United States.
Rubus durescens is a rare British species of flowering plant in the rose family. It is native to England, where the entire global distribution of this bramble is found only within the southern half of the county of Derbyshire. It occurs in hedges, shrubs, wood and heathy areas, and was first described and named in 1892 by the Derbyshire botanist William Richardson Linton. Linton placed an illustration of the plant in gold leaf on the cover of the 1903 version of The Flora of Derbyshire, of which he was the sole author.
