Small Base-Rich Flushes and Springs
These plant communities are generally small in extent and are usually associated with areas of surface water movement such as springs, rills and flushes and support a number of important plants which are characteristic of these lime-enriched conditions.
The flushes are typically dominated by a range of small sedges such as carnation sedge and long-stalked yellow sedge. In the most lime-rich flushes the number of calcicole species, such as quaking grass, lesser clubmoss increase. They also include the nationally scarce bird's eye primrose of which the Yorkshire Dales has a significant proportion of the UK population. Broad-leaved cottongrass is a very rare component of these flushes as is black bog-rush.
Bryophyte dominated spring occur in the immediate vicinity of springheads. These plant communities are very small in extent and are dominated by mosses. The vascular plant component is always poor, but richer communities support opposite-leaved golden saxifrage and mossy saxifrage.
