Tassel Stonewort (Tolypella intricata)
'A rare pond Cinderella'
Tassel Stonewort is a very special plant. Like all stoneworts it’s a living link between the ancient algae and our modern vascular plants.
Like a floral Cinderella - the Tassel Stonewort’s spores are rough and tough, and they can survive for 70 years or more in mud moved around on animals feet and especially the hooves of cows, horses and sheep. But, when a spore reaches water and germinates, it turns into a slender, translucently beautiful, plant.
This delicate species is also one of the ephemera of the pond-world. Like the spring flowers of woodlands it emerges early in the year before other plants become taller and steal all the light. We’ve even seen Tassel Stonewort thriving under the ice in February but – just like our spring flowers, it then vanishes just as suddenly – by May it’s finished fruiting and by June its gone.
Tassel Stonewort is now endangered in the UK. It needs groups of very clean water ponds, pools or ditches to survive, and these waterbodies need to be well tramped by cattle, and sometimes also partly shaded, to create the bare muddy edges where it can germinate in autumn and winter.
Your gift of £10.00 will help us to create new ponds in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire especially for the Tassel Stonewort, and to work together with land owners to help them manage their ponds to encourage this ancient organism.
The Give and Let Live Scheme is supported by our friends at Miller Philanthropy,
with additional thanks to Nick Roberts Design for the illustrations.
