Small Fleabane

Small Fleabane is a critically endangered, legally protected annual plant now largely confined to the New Forest and nearby Avon Valley. It depends on open, bare, nutrient-rich ground created by heavy grazing and trampling, especially where cattle and pigs concentrate around settlement-edge greens, lanes, and commoners’ yards; these habitats make up less than 1% of grazed forest land. Surveys in 2009 and 2013 estimated the UK population fell from about 282,000 to 243,000 plants, with over 80% at Penn Common. Some sites have declined or become locally extinct, particularly on Crown Land, where only Bartley Greens remains consistently occupied and South Weirs has been lost. The report links declines to reduced traditional management, increasing shade, and changes in commoning and land ownership, and recommends targeted support for livestock enterprises and habitat management to sustain populations.