Love it or hate it, common ragwort is thriving this time of year, and it looks beautiful throughout Dorset. But it is a plant which people either love or hate.
Owners of livestock spend many hours each year pulling ragwort from their paddocks and fields to remove it and avoid allowing it to take seed. Ragwort contains particular toxins in its leaves which can be harmful to ponies and cattle if eaten.
But, while it can be dangerous to ponies and cattle, it is a great plant for other reasons.
As well as adorning our fields and wildflower verges with splashes of yellow, ragwort is a wonderful nectar source for many bees, hoverflies and butterflies. In Dorset, through careful management of our land, we do what we can to attract these pollinators and help boost their dwindling numbers.
It also the food of choice for cinnabar moths which use bright colours – or aposematism – to warn others that they are toxic. The yellow and black stripes of the caterpillar and red and black markings of the moth are clear warnings to would be predators that they are poisonous.
Clearly ragwort should be pulled or cut where a hazard to livestock exists, but where there isn’t, we would encourage people to let it grow to feed many of our insects.
Flowers look pretty ,dead or sick animals don’t! Seeds are wind born and spread plants into neighbouring fields, please don’t let this pernicious weed get a hold. I believe it is still an offence to allow it to grow on your land?
See weeds act 1959
The person above obviously didn’t read the weeds act it does not make it an offence to allow ragwort to grow on your land.
Totally agree, there is far too much ragwort on the road margins and roundabouts seemingly left unchecked. 1 years seed is 10 years weed so ragwort thrives at the expense of other wild flowers too as it’s so invasive.
Utter rubbish.