Round-headed Club-rush (Scirpoides holoschoenus)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vascular plant > flowering plant > Sedge |
| 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: | Scirpoides holoschoenus |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (L.) Soják |
| 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: | Confined to two sites considered native in England (& Britain), with just a single plant at one site. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | A long-lived species, but only regenerates where damp bare sand exposed, either naturally or mechanically/artificially. The species has responded well to conservation management in Devon. |
| 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: | This species would not benefit from untargeted management |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 2. Biological status assessment exists |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Combination - sufficient |
| Species Comments: | A long-lived species of dune slacks in Devon & Somerset: currently abundant in southern half of Braunton Burrows but as a single individual at Berrow Dunes. Reproduces rapidly from seed on bare sand in seasonally-flooded dune slacks, & recent work at Braunton (through the Dynamic Dunescapes project to 2024), has resulted in major increase in population here |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Review status of species in Britain (i.e. native or introduced), using criteria from Pearman & Preston etc - with full review of 2023 paper on status.
Action targets: 2. Biological status assessment exists
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: Berrow Dunes SSSI (Somerset) Braunton Burrows SSSI (Devon)
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Undertake careful turf paring / scraping at Berrow Dunes, to provide bare, seasonally-flooded sand/peat for seedling establishment
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: 1 site
High priority sites: Berrow Dunes SSSI
Comments: Species has survived at Berrow Dunes as a single patch since discovery in 1896. The single clonal patch has spread from 15 inches (c. 1912) to 4 metres (2014), but increase from seed hindered by competition here.
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.