PLANTS AND PEAT CUTTINGS: HISTORICAL ECOLOGY OF A MUCH EXPLOITED PEATLAND - THORNE WASTE, YORKSHIRE, UK.

Although many lowland raised bogs have been much modified or completely destroyed by agricultural reclamation, peat cutting, unaccompanied by reclamation, is not necessarily so destructive, and abandoned workings may provide a range of habitats that can support some of the original wetland plant species. Thome Waste, a much exploited raised bog in Eastern England, has a varied and well-documented management history and comparatively good botanical records. It thus provides an exemplary site to assess the effect of peat exploitation upon its flora. The origin and development, and subsequent drainage, reclamation and peat extraction history of the site are described, and their impact upon the past and present flora is evaluated. Some ombrotrophic mire species have been lost from the site, but one section of peat cuttings (the Dutch canal system, abandoned about 1920) has revegetated and supports an important range of these plants. Fen species, which once occupied the marginal lagg, have been almost completely eliminated from their original sites (which have mostly been reclaimed) but many have become re-established in various new habitats created within the peat-cutting complex. This illustrates the potential of artificial modification of worked-over peatland sites to sustain a range of wetland plants.