Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
For many years I expected that someone would find Hair-leaved Goldilocks, Crinitaria linosyris
in Gower. It grows in Somerset and North Wales on the Carboniferous Limestone and there are
plenty of suitable habitats on this coast. My expectation has proved to be well justified … There
were only a few plants, but they grew in a wild place far from houses in limestone turf and are
undoubtedly native.
Now known as goldilocks aster
Aster linosyris
(Fig. 13), its presence in Gower, as Lousley surmised, is
'geographically andecologically unsurprising'(Wade
et al
.,1994).Theplantisveryrare,however,being
known from only eight sites between Port-Eynon and Mewslade Bay. The largest population occupies an
areaofabout40squaremetresinlowgorse
Ulex europaeus.
Lousleyalsorecordsthathehad'seenStink-
ing Hellebore near Park Mill and Gladdon and Caper Spurge (
Euphorbia lathyris
) at Nicholaston'.
FIG
13.
Goldilocks aster, the 'hair-leaved goldilocks' sought by J. E. Lousley. (David Painter)
Another notable, but local, botanist in the first half of the twentieth century was John Arthur Webb, a
Swansea schoolmaster, who during school holidays and after his retirement travelled widely throughout
Walesrecordingandcollecting specimens,whichhesenttotheNationalMuseumofWales.Thefirstspe-
