Ragwort - friend or foe?

Ragwort is a plant that provokes strong reactions amongst a certain group of people. We'll come back to that, though. First of all, ragwort is not a single, plant; it's a group of related species, all members of the genus Senecio. Common ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) is a widespread plant of grassland, meadows and road verges throughout Britain. Its close relatives - hoary ragwort, Oxford ragwort, marsh ragwort and fen ragwort - are less common but very similar in appearance.

Hoverfly and cricket feeding on ragwort

Oxford ragwort is a non-native invasive species which was originally introduced to Britain from Sicily in the early 18th century. It found the clinker of railway tracks very similar to the volcanic slopes of its homeland, jumped the wall from Oxford University Botanic Garden and began to spread along railway lines. Fen ragwort, conversely, is native but extremely rare, being confined to a single ditch near Ely.

Pair of mating red soldier beetles

But let us return to the common ragwort and its problems. It has the unfortunate property of being poisonous to horses and other livestock, causing liver damage or death. Whilst they might avoid it as a living, green plant, once cut and dried as hay it becomes more likely to be ingested. This effect on the pampered mounts of the chattering classes has led to common ragwort being vilified and persecuted. It was listed on the 1959 Weeds Act (yes, there is a Weeds Act), which can require a landowner with ragwort on their property to take action to control it.

Bumble bee nectaring on the flowers of ragwort

 

Dr Karin Alton examining a range of pollinators on Ragwort

Which is a shame, because it's a really good pollinator plant. It flowers abundantly, it is visited by a wide range of insects, and it is even the host of a particular species of moth, the cinnabar, whose distinctive striped caterpillars are found nowhere else (I recently heard them referred to as ragworms, a word I am going to use from now on). And it really is only a problem where horses or other livestock are likely to graze. So let's leave the poor plant alone on road verges and waste ground, and long may it support its ragworms!

Burnet moth

 

Cinnabar moth caterpillar

All photos copyright: Karin Alton