Northern Hawk's-beard (Crepis mollis)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vascular plant > flowering plant > Herbaceous plant |
| Red List Status: | Endangered (Not Relevant) [EN(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Crepis mollis |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Jacq.) Asch. |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | in Stroh et al., 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | VU in England, with British strongholds in the North Pennines and borders, very scattered elsewhere, including the Yorkshire Dales |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Relies on the maintenance of flushed grassland in upland hay meadows and in pastures overlying calcareous substrates, and therefore sensitive to a range of agricultural improvements as well as tree-planting in upland cleughs. Only tolerates light grazing or infrequent mowing, so needs less intensive management than might be implemented otherwise for a meadow. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Broader scale habitat management could work alongside more targeted actions. Only tolerates light grazing or infrequent mowing, so needs less intensive management than might be implemented otherwise for a meadow. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 4. Autecology and pressures understood |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Combination - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Populations have been surveyed opportunistically or formally, such as the BSBI's Threatened Plants Project, but likely to be insufficient due to the difficulty of identifying this species which means it is likely to be overlooked |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Further surveys are needed in the North Pennines to establish the full extent of this species
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Review what is known about the plant to identify why it has declined at existing and disappeared from former sites
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: Not applicable
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Maintain areas of infrequent grazing or cutting which supports the species at the existing sites, and ensure such areas are included within management plans
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 20 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.