We examined for a number of plant species if they were part of the natural flora of arable fields in the Netherlands, based on old reports of arable fields in the floristic literature, herbarium collections and archaeobotanical collections of locally cultivated grain. Orlaya grandiflora turned out to have grown as a wild plant in Southern Limburg since the Roman period up until 1939. Bromus grossus, an internationally threatened species of the European Habitats Directive, was collected a few times in the arable fields of Southern Limburg in the 19th century up until 1930, but probably it occurred already much longer in this area and also elsewhere in the Netherlands. Aira caryophyllea subsp. plesiantha was not only part of the wild flora of arable fields in Southern Limburg, but also in the area of Groesbeek southeast of Nijmegen. In an arable field being part of a nature reserve near Groesbeek, this subspecies was found back in 2010 and 2015 by the first author. Of the other investigated species, also Adonis aestivalis (last record: 1935), Ajuga chamaepitys (1930), Asperula arvensis (1925), Nigella arvensis (1912), Stachys annua (1971), and the neophytes Calepina irregularis (still present recently) and Vaccaria hispanica (±1950), were found to be part of the wild flora of arable fields, at least in Southern Limburg, but partly also elsewhere in the Netherlands. We propose to reconsider the status of these taxa during the next assessment of the Dutch Standard List and Red List of vascular plants, using the data presented in this article.

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Gorteria Dutch Botanical Archives

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Naturalis Biodiversity Center

K.A.O. Eichhorn, & O. Brinkkemper. (2018). Sinds lang verdwenen akkerplanten: Nederlandse flora of niet?. Gorteria Dutch Botanical Archives, 40(1), 19–33.