A COLD and damp summer has been as bad for the dale’s rare flowers as it has been for farmers and allotment holders.
The lack of blooming gentians and other unique wildflowers on Cronkley Fell and surrounding areas was highlighted by celebrated botanist Dr Margaret Bradshaw who has been leading fortnightly Sunday walks in the area.
She said: “I wish the weather had been better over the whole period. It was a bit bleak and cold in May.
“There were very few plants in flower. During July there were some much better days.
“At the beginning of August the only place that I could find any of the rare plants at all was where Natural England fences out the sheep from May until about September. There were some in there, but not all that many.”
She added that there were too few good summer days for the plants to thrive.
Dr Bradshaw said: “The last 12 months we’ve had too much cloud, too little sunshine.”
The Teesdale Special Flora Research and Conservation Trust, which she founded, was given a boost last month when it was awarded £5,000 by the Benefact Group.
The group makes awards each year to ten causes that support the climate and environment.
Trustees have yet to decide how the cash will be spent, but Dr Bradshaw hopes some will be used to further research into the dale’s wildflowers.
She added: “I would also like money to be spent to increasing awareness of the importance of green plants, because without green plants we’d have no oxygen – no oxygen means no humans, no wildlife, a dead earth.”
Currently the trust is carrying out work in the upper dale to monitor the decline in rare species and to find ways of reversing the trend.
The survey is being carried out by John O’Reilly and two assistants.
Ms Bradshaw said: “They have probably completed the upper part of Cronkley Fell, and then they have been surveying the River Tees on the Yorkshire side. They have been getting on very well.
“A lot of it has been a small number of species, including gentians, on the limestone south of Cronkley Fell.”
As part of her fundraising efforts for the trust, the 98-year-old is continuing her challenge to walk a mile a day.
She said: “I was challenged on my birthday to do 55 miles, which is the circumference of the upper Teesdale area with most of the rare flora in it.
“I completed that by the end of February, but I found this regular walking was doing me good and so I continued.”
She now wants to quadruple the target to 220 miles, and at the end of August had completed 188 miles.
To support the fundraising effort visit https://shorturl.at /UDgAc.
