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happy couple... |
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will
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1830 |
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Posted: 29 Apr 2011 at 8:55pm |
...for some reason the zig-zag at Boscombe was empty of people today, so giving this happy couple more peace than usual...
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Liz Heard
Senior Member Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Location: South West Status: Offline Points: 1429 |
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blinding pic will
thanks for posting. as an aside, when we were in Boscombe last week i observed swathes of this succulent beside the zigzag. rarely visiting seaside habitat, ive never encountered it before. do you (or anyone here) happen to know what it is and if its native? put me out of my misery and save me searching the internet/books or posting on ispot! flowerheads are 6-7cm in diameter. cheers |
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Wolfgang Wuster
Senior Member Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 374 |
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It's a hottentot fig (Carpobrotus edulis) - an invasive species native to South Africa. It's a serious pest in parts of the Mediterranean and elsewhere with a Mediterranean climate, although I guess the UK climate will control it a bit more than would be the case in warmer latitudes.
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Wolfgang Wüster
School of Biological Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor http://pages.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/ |
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will
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1830 |
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Thanks Ben; as Wolfgang says it's hottentot fig - it was indeed noticeably knocked back by the cold winter of 09/10, and to a lesser extent this winter - however it's still carpeting swathes of the cliffs and in Cornwall it's a real pest.
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David Bird
Forum Specialist Joined: 11 Apr 2011 Location: Dorset Status: Offline Points: 6 |
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Natural England have spent a lot of money over the past decade or so controlling the Hottentot fig on the Bournemouth cliffs. The patches do look reasonable reptile habitat especially with the dead dry and warm material underneath but on my cliff surveys I have found no reptiles in or around them, they also do not seem to harbour many invertebrates either. Last year I did find some of the ripe "Figs" or as the South Africans call them "Sour Figs" but found them rather salty with an unplesant bitterness nothing really like figs.
David
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kithara
Member Joined: 21 Sep 2011 Status: Offline Points: 19 |
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very lucky shot
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