Sand Spurrey

Sand Spurrey - Spergularia rubra

Alternative names
Red Spurrey
Description

Short, stickily hairy plant. Leaves fleshy, semi-cylindrical in whorls and end in a short bristle, the flowers are pink and have five petals.

Similar Species

Spergularia marina

Identification difficulty
ID checklist (your specimen should have all of these features)

See key in Stace for differences.  

Recording advice

Records must be verified by a County Recorder from a specimen or series of photos

Habitat

Dry waste places, bare and cultivated land.

When to see it

Flowers between May and early September.

Life History

Annual or biennial.

UK Status

Widespread in much of Britain, but sometimes local.

VC55 Status

Local in Leicestershire and Rutland.  In the Flora of Leicestershire (Primavesi and Evans 1988) it was found in 30 of the 617 tetrads.

In the current checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as Native, scarce and confined to Charnwood Forest and Croft.

It was on the 2011 VC55 Rare Plant Register (Jeeves, 2011) but does not meet the criteria for the current RPR (Hall and Woodward, 2022) - possibly under-recorded in the past, but may be increasing

Leicestershire & Rutland Map

MAP KEY:

Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2025+ | 2020-2024 | pre-2020

UK Map

Additional images

All NatureSpot records