The pillwort fern is one of Britain's most unusual – and striking – nativewater plants. Its tiny fronds unfurl to create lush green underwater meadows in lakes and ponds.
However, the pillwort is under threat, a victim of polluted waters and invasive species that are changing the watery habitats of Britain.
The fern is not alone. The tadpole shrimp is another rare species that finds its existence similarly threatened. Considered to be a living fossil, the shrimp – known as Triops cancriformis – has not changed in appearance since the Triassic period, 220 million years ago. Today its numbers have reached a perilously low level, and the arrival of invasive shrimps could make it rarer still.
Then there is the Southern Damselfly, which once thrived across rivers in Cornwall, Somerset and much of south-west England but which is now confined to two pockets, one in the New Forest and the other in the Preseli mountains, Pembrokeshire, a victim of the rise in water abstraction for new towns and factories, which is lowering water tables while draining land for agricultural use.
These species are just a small selection of the birds, crayfish, mammals, eels, water voles and other forms of life that are now hovering perilously close to extinction in Britain and which could now be wiped out by a chance act of pollution, a flood or a year or two of bad weather, say experts.
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