Lough Corr ASSI

Lough Corr is of special scientific interest because of its wetland flora and fauna. It is situated in County Tyrone on the eastern slopes of Bolaght Mountain and rests upon a substrate of Carboniferous sandstone. It is a diverse upland wetland containing good quality fen, swamp and freshwater communities. Additional diversity is provided by areas of cut-over bog, wet heath and scrub to the north of the site. A wide range of wetland plants occur, some of which are scarce. In addition, the area is locally important for invertebrates.
The open waters of Lough Corr are mesotrophic (relatively low in plant nutrients) and contain a range of aquatic plants such as red pondweed, small pondweed, white water-lily, greater bladderwort, shoreweed and floating bur-reed.
The lough margin is fringed by a band of emergent swamp vegetation that has a diverse range of vegetation communities comprising stands of bottle sedge, common spike-rush, common club-rush and water horsetail.
Along the western shore of the lough there are areas of good quality swamp and species-rich fen with a natural transition to wet heath communities. The species-rich areas of fen include sedges such as slender sedge, bottle sedge, common sedge and great fen-sedge. Associated higher plants include bogbean, marsh cinquefoil, lesser spearwort and water mint with meadow thistle occurring in the drier areas. Bryophyte cover is generally high and is dominated by flat-topped bog-moss, hooked scorpion-moss, pointed spear-moss and occasional giant spear-moss.Further habitat diversity is provided by areas of cut-over bog and wet heath which occur to the north and north-east of Lough Corr. Purple moor-grass, heather, cross-leaved heath and bog-myrtle dominate this area. Other herbs include common cottongrass, bog asphodel and devil’s-bit scabious. There are also some localised pockets of willow scrub and occasional downy birch. Wet flushes are prevalent in this area and are generally dominated by bog pondweed with occasional round-leaved sundew, indicating the acidic nature of the water as it flows though the peaty soils.

Towards the edge of the lough, the wet heath is intersected by a series of base-rich flushes running down towards the lake. The groundwater here is influenced by calcium-rich rock deposits further up-slope. These flushes are species-rich and are characterised by sedges such as yellow-sedge, dioecious sedge and carnation sedge. Higher plants include common butterwort, pale butterwort and lesser clubmoss. The bryophytes recorded are also typical of this community, especially twisted bog-moss which is restricted to base-rich, upland flushes. Other mosses recorded include dense mats of rusty hook-moss and yellow starry feather-moss.

In addition to the range of species associated with the diverse swamp and fen communities, the area also supports a number of notable plants, such as northern yellow-cress, small sweet-grass and intermediate bladderwort. Lough Corr also supports a rich wetland invertebrate community, a direct consequence of the diversity of the swamp and fen communities and associated wetland habitats.

Site Related Documents

Site map (.PDF 819Kb), Citation document (.PDF 136Kb) and Views about Management document (.PDF 70Kb)