In April 2025 the Cowslip population was surveyed on the Park. The results are shown on the map using ACFOR where A= Abundant, C= Common, O= Occasional, R= Rare.
It has been a rather mixed year for Cowslip's because March was the driest on record and this has been largely reflected in the growth of the plant's and especially the height of the flowering heads. In some cases in the driest areas the plants are really quite stunted and the flower stalks really short. In just a very few cases there are the properly formed tall flowerheads as expected.
Fully formed flowering plant as usual.
Interestingly, some of the groups of plants are on the same location as they were recorded in the very first survey of this plant in 1980 so presumably they are essentially the same plants or their offspring and this has been repeated in several other places in the survey. Square F8 is an example.
It is open to speculation how these groups of plants continue from year to year and it is open to question if new plants arise from seeds shed by the parent plants or they originate from offsets once again from the parent plants?
There is no obvious way in which Cowslip seed is dispersed other than passively so the occasional appearance of an isolated clump on a site not recorded before is also unexplained.
In many ways this survey replicates what was found in 1980 and if anything the population has expanded slightly in spite of increased footfall impact.
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