OV7: Veronica persica-Veronica polita community: Veronico-Lamietum hybridi Kruseman & Vlieger 1939

Summary

Synonymy

Setario-Veronicetum politae Oberdorfer 1957 sensu Silverside 1977; Tripleurospermum maritimum stands Kay 1994 p.p.

Constant species

Bilderdykia convolvulus, Chenopodium album, Matricaria perforata, Polygonum aviculare, Stellaria media, Veronica persica, Veronica polita.

Physiognomy

In the Veronico-Lamietum, both Veronica persica and the more geographically restricted V. polita are constant, the former often in some abundance by summer. Polygonum aviculare also frequently has high cover and Stellaria media and Bilderdykia convolvulus are constant contributors among the smaller herbs. Often more conspicuous, however, are the mealy shoots of Chenopodium album and the big daisy-like inflorescences of Matricaria perforata, especially where this shows a second flush of flowering in unploughed stubble remaining after harvest into the autumn.

Lamium hybridum is a particularly diagnostic associate of the above constants but it is not universally present in this community. More frequent are Poa annua, Elymus repens, Senecio vulgaris, Capsella bursa-pastoris and Chamomilla suaveolens with Euphorbia helioscopia, Sonchus oleraceus, Solanum nigrum and Urtica urens among the occasionals.

Habitat

The Veronico-Lamietum is characteristically a weed community of cereals and other annual field crops on lighter, well-drained, highly fertile circumneutral soils in the warmer and drier lowlands of southern and eastern Britain.

Suitable soil conditions for most of the common species of this assemblage are very widespread through the lowland agricultural landscape of this country but both Veronica polita and, more strikingly, Lamium hybridum are more restricted to areas with a Continental climate (Perring & Walters 1962).