SD1: Rumex crispus-Glaucium flavum shingle community

Summary

Synonymy

Shingle beach community Oliver 1911, Oliver & Salisbury 1913, Tansley 1939, all p.p; Glaucium flavum sites Scott 1963 p.p.; Crithmo-Crambetum maritimae (Géhu 1960) Géhu & Géhu 1969 p.p.; Lathryo-Crambetum maritimae Géhu & Géhu 1969; Crambe maritima sites Scott & Randall 1976 p.p.; Rumici-Lathyretum maritimi Géhu & Géhu-Franck 1979.

Constant species

Glaucium flavum, Rumex crispus.

Rare species

Crambe maritima.

Physiognomy

The Rumex crispus-Glaucium flavum community comprises more or less open assemblages of rather coarse hemicryptophytes, usually few in number and with none consistently dominant, but together giving a highly distinctive character to the stretches of bare shingle or gravel that form the typical habitat, especially when the plants are fully grown in flower or fruit. The commonest species overall is Rumex crispus, generally with the obviously tri-tubercular perianths and dense panicles of var. littoreus Hardy (which now includes var. trigranulatus Syme: Lousley & Kent 1981, Rich & Rich 1988), the tall inflorescences remaining upstanding, brown and brittle, at the close of the season. Glaucium flavum is also constant and sometimes very abundant. It behaves as a short-lived perennial, each plant having one to many biennial leaf-rosettes, these persisting through their first winter, with the tall, branched flowering stems growing up in spring. Both these inflorescences and the foliage die after fruiting, but several new rosettes replace each old one before winter, such that colonies expand progressively from one season to the next (Scott 1963b).