Page 46 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #11
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church built at or since that time will tend to Almost half the churchyard Above: churchyards
reflect this and its core churchyard flora will often retain flowers
– here bluebells in
be that of relatively modern cultivated land; lichen species are classed Cornwall – indicating
though none the worse for that because it may their ancient origins.
contain now vanishing cornfield plants such as rare, while some seldom Below: this massive
as the enduringly beautiful corncockle. yew in Crowhurst,
occur anywhere else. Surrey, is believed
Eastern promise by some to be
4,000 years old.
To the east, however, the countryside was
shaped longer ago, its enclosures defined
by much more irregular hedges, walls and
ditches – relics of far older land occupation, with some fungi lurking in the soil and,
dating as far back as the human settlements most significantly, lichens. Because lichens
Churchyard: Getty; lichen: John Glover/Getty; slow-worm: Kristian Bell/Getty;
of the Bronze Age. The flora of churchyards are extremely slow growing, they benefit
waxcap: Matthew Taylor/Alamy; yew: John Glover/Alamy; gravestone: Getty
created here will have a much longer ancestry particularly from the lack of disturbance,
and the chances are greater that they will and gravestones and chest tombs with their
include more rarities, more plants now horizontal moisture-retaining covers offer the
uncommon in the surrounding area. perfect stone platforms for them to colonise.
A survey carried out in Norfolk a few years And because there are no natural outcrops
ago exemplified this. It revealed that around of rock throughout much of lowland Britain,
half the county’s populations of the once- graveyards may be the only places for many
widespread wildflowers burnet-saxifrage, miles where some lichen species occur.
cowslip, lady’s bedstraw, ox-eye daisy, sorrel Of the 1,700 or so British lichen species,
and pignut are to be found in its churchyards. over 300 have been found on churchyard
It is much less likely that relict populations stone in lowland England. Many churchyards
of animals – other perhaps than the smallest contain well over 100 species. Moreover,
invertebrates – will have survived in isolation, almost half the churchyard species are classed
but so called ‘lower plants’ (ferns, mosses as rare, having been found in fewer than 10
and liverworts) may well have done so, along sites; while some seldom occur anywhere else.
46 BBC Wildlife
