Water-meadow Dandelion (Taraxacum hygrophilum)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vascular plant > flowering plant > Herbaceous plant |
| Red List Status: | Vulnerable (Not Relevant) [VU(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: | Taraxacum hygrophilum |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Soest |
| 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: | Requires research to determine management requirements of the sole population of the Critically Endangered dandelion (the 2014 listing is outdated). Only one small (<50 plants?) population in a wet meadow at Stodmarsh SSSI in Kent in 2016, gone from previously reported adjacent water meadow (Rich et al. 2018). |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | The one small population is very depending on ground water levels and grazing levels, neither of which is understood for this species. |
| 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: | No |
| Justification: | Dependent on maintaining short, open, damp water meadow in only site. Given small population, wind-dispersed seeds and specific vegetation, unlikely to spread. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 2. Biological status assessment exists |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Unknown |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Need specific surveys as few dandelion experts available, and outside skills/scope of general BSBI Atlas and local flora mapping |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Full population assessment in sole remaining watermeadow with quadrats to determine vegetation/NVC niche in May when flowering. Map occurrence of niche elsewhere in SSSI and locally in Kent and survey for potential populations.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: 1 site
High priority sites: Stodmarsh SSSI
Comments: Seed collected for Millennium Seed Bank so potential for wider scale recovery through translocation.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Assess hydrological status of watermeadow and how this relates to wider current water management of Stodmarsh SSSI (previous meadow too wet now, so water regime changing), and how it may change in future under conditions of climate change.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: 1 site
High priority sites: Stodmarsh SSSI
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Review current grazing/habitat management and how this may benefit the dandelion in terms of creating the right vegetation niche
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: 1 site
High priority sites: Stodmarsh SSSI
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.