Moneses uniflora Trial Abernethy

One-flowered Wintergreen, Moneses uniflora, is a vary rare pinewoods flower now present at 7 sites in Scotland. It is rapidly declining in the UK, with recent surveys by Plantlife indicating it has gone extinct at 3 sites in the last 15 years. The flower is widely distributed across boreal habitat in the northern hemisphere, but may be suffering a serious global decline, with surveys in Sweden showing 84% extinction of sites within 10 years (Eriksson, 2022). Moneses appears as a small leafy rosette that takes two to four years to develop a single flower head, after which the plant is thought to die. It spreads via dust like seeds, but also commonly reproduces vegetatively via rhizomes. It inhabits the bryophyte layer of pinewoods, preferring nutrient poor thin acidic sandy soils, often growing in disturbed ground and near the edges of wetter areas. However, our understanding of its niche is poor, as it is declining and rare despite apparently suitable unoccupied habitat.

Moneses is known to associate with ectomycorrhizal fungi, it gathers some of its energy through fungi, a particularly important step during seedling development. These fungi associate with pine trees, although aren’t specific to Pinus sylvestris, and are also saprotrophic, breaking down dead wood. Current niches of remaining populations also correlate with recent or historic disturbance by grazing or forestry operation. Study on Moneses has suggested its decline may relate to a reduction in disturbance to the pinewoods forest floor via grazing, and an increase in single age structure plantations and clear felling (Eriksson, 2022). This is under active investigation in partnership with RBGE. A genetic study of all Scottish populations has also been commissioned.

In October 2023 Plantlife led a small-scale trial translocation of Moneses into RSPB Abernethy. This translocation is not only to reinforce the remnant population of 60 Moneses (in 2023) at Abernethy, but also to test if translocation is a viable conservation strategy for the preservation of both recipient and donor populations.