Interview with Angus Hannah, author of BSBI Handbook #25: Brambles of Scotland

There’s a new addition to the series of BSBI Handbooks: we are delighted to announce that Brambles of Scotland is published this month. BSBI members will be able to benefit from an exclusive introductory offer of £13 (excl. P&P) which will save them £7 compared the RRP of £20. This offer opens on 21 April. 

I spoke to Angus Hannah, the author of the new Handbook, to find out about his botanical back-story and how he became interested in brambles.

LM: Before we start talking about Brambles of Scotland, could you tell us a bit more about yourself please? Regular readers will know you as BSBI’s County Recorder for the Clyde Islands (vc100) and author of the Isle of Bute Flora, for which you received the Presidents' Award in 2019. So, how did you get started as a botanist?  

AH: That goes back to my undergraduate years at St Andrews finding spring flowers along the Ladebraes. A sign by the pond read ‘Wild flowers are planted here, please do not pick’. The paradox of the first half amused me; the implication of the second half, that it would be fine to pick them if they had been truly wild made me wonder about conservation. In those days senior students had free access to the Library stacks and though the botany department was inactive there was a good shelf of older books from before 1847 when the University sold its birthright as a copyright library. Sowerby’s English Botany had much better illustrations than Collins Field Guide, and was my companion on many field trips to the Kinkell shore and Tentsmuir.

Picts' Bramble R. pictorum,
showing the intense colour
which the stems can
develop in full sun
Image: M. Harding

LM: So, what drew you to brambles (Rubus) as a genus? We all know what a bramble looks like and we certainly enjoy eating them in pies and crumbles, but may not realise that there are many different species.

AH: In my first decade as BSBI’s County Recorder for Clyde Isles I made no progress with brambles, and only the gentle persistence of my retired predecessor Tony Church, who had mastered the Arran brambles, finally persuaded me to have a go. He assured me that as long as one stays local they are not all that difficult, helped me with photographs, and even came to Bute to guide me in the field. 

When I identified the Picts' Bramble Rubus pictorum (new to Bute) from the description in Edees & Newton’s Brambles of the British Isles, while Tony was still puzzling over the specimen, I felt I had got over the first hurdle. But there were many more! Not every species matched its description so well. 

At that time, I was recording every monad (a 1km x 1km grid square) for my Isle of Bute Flora, and this gave me an opportunity to look at all the island brambles in detail at different seasons, making me familiar with about 15 species and providing the best possible grounding before I ventured more widely.

LM: So, what made you decide to take the leap from liking and recording members of this genus to taking on the mantle of being a BSBI Handbook author? Did you put yourself forward or were you encouraged by fellow botanists/ batologists?

Angus (on left) and Chris Miles
examining brambles in Dumfriesshire
Image: M. Harding

AH: It was dire necessity! Having been appointed the BSBI’s expert Referee for Scottish Rubus by default in 2023, as the only person in Scotland who knew anything about brambles (even if not very much) following the sad loss of George Ballantyne and then David Welch, there was no one else to write it, and I knew that without an illustrated field guide there was no future for Rubus studies in Scotland. 

I had been holding annual meetings around southwest Scotland with a few Scottish enthusiasts to look at the local brambles, and from time to time we would all say ‘if only there were pictures, it would make such a difference!’ But who could write it? 

One day, browsing John Richards’ recent Field Handbook to British and Irish Dandelions, I suddenly saw how it might be done. We have far fewer bramble species in Scotland than there are British dandelions. I could afford to give a double page spread to each, text and map on one page, photos on the other, and so the idea took form. At this stage it was a purely private venture, a simple field-guide for Scottish beginners in brambles; I had no thought of it becoming a Handbook.

But how could I get photos of every species? Looking over the records in the BSBI Distribution Database, I noticed that several counties in Scotland had almost no localised bramble species records, despite having plenty of brambles. 

Flower of Eagle's Talon Bramble
R. infestus
Image: C. Miles

Most obvious in the southwest was Dumfriesshire, and so I enquired of the County Recorder, Chris Miles, if he, or one his local group, might send me a few photos of brambles they met with on their jaunts, some of which I might be able to identify. In this way, I could get photos and he could get records. His amazing response was 160 sets of photos over the season, yielding more than a hundred new records. 

At the Scottish Botanists’ Conference in November 2023 I exhibited a poster about this and my proposed guide book, showing a sample page, and Liz Kungu, BSBI Handbook Editor, suggested I might consider making it a BSBI Handbook. I had not thought of this, since it was limited to the brambles of Scotland and was only intended for beginners. 

Liz felt it would have broader interest, for instance to visitors, and it might encourage similar volumes for other parts of Britain and Ireland.

Leaf of Eagle's Talon Bramble
R. infestus
Image: C. Miles

In the course of researching and writing I learned a great deal more about brambles, my enthusiasm for them increased, and the book grew from the simple beginners’ guide I had envisaged into a fully-fledged Handbook with quite a comprehensive introductory section discussing many aspects of their ecology and distribution as well as a more concise summary of morphology, taxonomy and modes of reproduction. It also includes a history of Rubus recording in Scotland, with detailed emphasis on the last half century. 

After this comes a gallery of photos illustrating the numerous characters needed for bramble identification, along with full explanatory text and two keys, followed by the species accounts and a series of Appendices, the first giving brief notes on 30 further species recorded from Scotland only very rarely, and with no confirmation of their continued presence. Many of these are illustrated by specimens from Newton’s collection in the Herbarium in Manchester Museum, very kindly found and passed on by David Earl. Refinding any of these 30 species becomes part of our ongoing Scottish bramble project.

Angus (on left) and Caspian Richards
examining bramble specimens
Image: M. Harding

LM: So, the Handbook is 220 pages long, and covers 56 species in depth, with a further 30 noted more briefly. How many are native and how many alien? And how many are new taxa, described by you or a fellow batologist?

AH: There are three cultivars of uncertain origin (certainly Scottish neophytes), and four or five others among the 56 are adventives, recently introduced accidentally from England, as are the majority of the 30 additional species. All the rest might be considered native to Scotland, though brambles have such a close symbiosis with humans that it is impossible to know if some might be better called archaeophytes. 

A few are endemic to Scotland, and may be assumed to have arisen here; the rest are migrants, arriving from the Continent as the cold lessened but probably in most cases before sea-levels rose, greatly enlarging the North Sea.

The "showy white flowers" of R. longiflorus,
photographed in 2020 in Kincardineshire
by the late David Welch 

Only two are recently described species: R. newtonii, published by George Ballantyne in Watsonia in 2002 and R. longiflorus published by David Welch in British & Irish Botany in 2021. For reasons I explain in the Handbook, unlike botanists in general, we are parsimonious in the publication of bramble species, and usually require evidence of a range extending over about 30 km before this would be considered. 

Further species might be published if some taxonomic problems can be resolved: a couple of our ‘species’ are almost certainly aggregates, and several share the name of an English species with which they may not in fact be conspecific. But much work remains to be done before any of these could be published under a new name.

LM: Indeed. Could you give us an example please of one of the 56 species you cover and what we can expect to find out from the new Handbook about its identification, distribution and current status?

The Reay Bramble R. hartmanii in Caithness
Image: Joan Docherty

AH: No bramble species has any conservation status, but every species has an interesting story. Perhaps the simplest, as it is the rarest species among the 56, is what I call the Reay bramble R. hartmanii. As currently understood, this species has a very abnormal distribution. Described in 1832 from a small stretch of the Baltic coast south of Stockholm, it was unknown elsewhere until a sizeable colony considered to be the same species was found in the Weald of Kent. In 1972 Newton found a bush which he identified as this species on the north coast of Scotland at Reay in Caithness, where it had been thought to be too cold and exposed for brambles to grow, and he didn’t expect it to survive for long. George Ballantyne checked up on it in 1982 and reported it to be thriving, as did David Welch in 2015. A resident of Bute who travels regularly to Dounreay for work kindly agreed to obtain the photos I needed if the Reay Bramble was to be included among the Scottish residents, a status it seemed to deserve after more than half a century.

Angus & Carol Crawford look up at
a giant R. ulmifolius with Arran
(one of the lovely Clyde Islands)
in the background
Image: M. Harding

Edees & Newton suggest that it was probably bird sown, but as I explain in the introductory section, this is exceedingly improbable, and as it is on the edge of a small plantation it is most likely to have been imported along with the trees, though some connection with the nearby nuclear plant cannot be ruled out. The text offers a detailed description to supplement the photos, but confusion with any other species is unlikely, since no other brambles currently grow in the vicinity. Its continuing prosperity, however, indicates that neither cold nor exposure is the reason for this absence; as I explain in the book the paucity of brambles in the north of Scotland, and more generally in the uplands, owes little to climate but is a result of the Highland Clearances and subsequent intensive grazing by sheep, and later deer too, which, combined with the loss of their natural dispersal vectors, makes them dependent on human agency for recolonisation.

LM: So in the Handbook you're helping us understand how these plants arrived and continued to prosper in their various locations, as well as how to identify them. You must have visited a lot of locations across Scotland in the course of your research. Are there any that particularly stand out in your memory?

Angus on a bramble meeting with Anne
Middleton & Michael Philip
Image taken by "a friendly anonymous artist"

AH: When I began the book the 2023 season was nearly over. A month earlier I had recorded the brambles of Colonsay with Anne Middleton, which taught me that brambles are tolerant of exposure but not of grazing. I had no plan then to write a book so soon, and despite having collected photos over the years, there were many species for which I had no pictures at all. The distribution of these dictated the places I would need to visit in 2024, except where a friend could be found to identify and photograph them for me. 

That summer’s bramble meeting was planned for Dumfriesshire, and with Chris Miles guiding us to some of the sites he had photographed the previous year, we were able fill a few gaps. 

Angus & the team examining
Elegant-petalled Bramble R. polyanthemus
in Ayrshire
Image: M. Harding

With Michael Philip I planned an expedition to the north-east, and with help and hospitality from David Elston we managed to see and photograph a dozen species unfamiliar in the southwest. Caspian Richards sent pictures from East Lothian and Berwickshire; I had a short visit to Stirlingshire with Matt Harding, one to Kintyre and a couple to Wigtownshire; Ian Green sent photos from Moray, Paul Smith from Lewis and Harris, and gradually the gaps were filled. 

Later, as already mentioned, David Earl sent me numerous images from Newton’s herbarium collection in Manchester Museum, illustrating the actual specimens of many of the adventive records detailed in the Appendix. In all these ways, the book has been very much a collaborative venture. 

LM: I think collaborative ventures are often the best kind! But you mentioned herbaria – did you visit many herbaria to look at specimens? Are herbarium specimens particularly useful when it comes to bramble identification? And how on earth do you press a bramble?

Herbarium sheet of
R. longiflorus
collected by David Welch in 2020 

AH: There is a good account of how to press brambles on John Norton’s website which also has many photos from life of Hampshire brambles, some of the more widespread of which grow in Scotland too. Dried specimens are harder to identify than living bushes, and on the whole it is more helpful for beginners to build a photographic reference collection, since the characters preserved in dried material are often different from those observed in the field, although they remain of great value to experts. 

An extensive photo collection is being assembled of living Scottish brambles, as a complement to the book, and it is hoped it will be made available online before too long. Photos of northern English brambles by David Earl can be found here.

LM: Please keep us posted about that photo collection of living Scottish brambles, Angus, it would be very useful to have that online and accessible to all of us! Photos are obviously very important when it comes to bramble identification – and illustrations are always an important part of any BSBI Handbook. So, what can we expect here, apart from the photographs: are there drawings and distribution maps?

Distribution map for R. dasyphyllus

AH: There are maps for 55 species, showing the relative frequency of records at hectad scale (10km x 10km). Recording is inevitably patchy, and these can be no more than a guide to where the species is most likely to be found. The maps are based on all-time records from the BSBI Distribution Database, and species will have been lost from some areas, and will sometimes be found where not previously recorded. Other maps in the book illustrate the severe losses of brambles (even as an aggregate) in most upland areas and across much of the Highlands, while others show the reduced level of species recording in the last 25 years (except for the handful of counties where batologists were active). 

The only drawing is the frontispiece by Sarah Cowan, joint County Recorder for Clyde Isles, showing R. hebridensis. 

LM: That is such a lovely drawing by Sarah, and of course it was used for the cover of Brambles of Scotland (image top right). And as you mentioned earlier, the galleries of photographs show the various characters needed for identification.

AH: Yes, each of the 56 main species is illustrated by a collage of about six to nine photos, selected to show the most helpful characters for identification. These were contributed by many helpers, as explained above, and I am most grateful to them all. There's an example on the left - a collage of images for Elegant-petalled bramble R. polyanthemus. 

LM: That looks really helpful (and very attractive!) So Angus, all BSBI Handbook authors benefit from editorial support to help them through the process towards publication. Who was on your editorial team?

AH: Liz Kungu, BSBI Handbook Editor, with help from David Pearman, steered the book into its final form. Earlier drafts were read by John Crossley, Carol Crawford and Michael Philip, all of whom made helpful suggestions both stylistic and typographical. David Earl read it with an expert batologist’s eye, and as already mentioned contributed many useful illustrations.

LM: You had a great team supporting you there. So finally, once people have a copy of this Handbook they will be keen to get out and use it in the field on some actual brambles – are there any events coming up this year where they can do that in the company of fellow botanists? Are you running any such events?

Angus and a mystery bramble
Image: M. Harding

AH: A meeting for anyone interested in brambles, whether already experienced or thinking of taking up the challenge is being held this year over the weekend of 5-6 July, based in Dunbar, East Lothian. I have never until now looked at a bramble in that county, so I will be as much a learner as anyone else. Please don’t be put off by the description ‘specialist, training’ - the meeting is for anyone who wishes to come. 

May I appeal particularly to anyone visiting Scotland (or a different part of it) to contact me if they might possibly think of taking a few bramble photos? I will supply some guidance and any information on what might be of particular interest in the locality. Getting Scottish brambles better recorded is our first task, and photos are the way to achieve this!

Angus and the team test the draft Handbook
on a patch of R. scissus in Dumfriesshire
Image: C. Miles

LM: Yes, indeed and I hope people will get in touch with you Angus, even if they don't feel ready to tackle identifying brambles to species. 

Readers, the important thing is: if you're going on holiday anywhere in Scotland and you can recognise anything that looks like a bramble, just take a photo and send it to Angus. Or email him before you set off to find out what to look out for and where to hunt. His contact details are on the Clyde Islands webpage so you can always get in touch with him.

Well, thanks for talking to us about the new Handbook, Angus. As you know it's the 25th in BSBI’s series of Handbooks for difficult plant groups. Brambles of Scotland has been a long time coming but it looks as though it will be well worth the wait – many thanks to you and your editors and contributors for all your hard work and thank you for talking to me today. Before you go, may I issue an invitation to you please? Would you be interested in giving a talk or a workshop, or some other kind of presentation, at one of our events later this year? Maybe the Summer Meeting in Melrose or the 2025 Scottish Botanists’ Conference in Edinburgh?

AH: I am always happy to talk about brambles when I'm at a BSBI event, so the answer is yes!

Angus examining a bramble in Stirlingshire
Image: M. Harding

LM: Thank you! Readers should keep an eye on the BSBI website for announcements of where and when Angus is talking about brambles. But for now, they will want to know how to get hold of a copy of the new Handbook.

First, check out the Brambles of Scotland webpage. 

If you are a BSBI member, there will be more details in the Spring issue of BSBI News, due out towards the end of April, of how BSBI members can benefit from our exclusive members-only offer and save £7, paying just £13 per copy compared to the RRP of £20. The special offer opens on Easter Monday, 21 April, and those prices don’t include postage & packaging. You will also be able to order your copy by following the links on the members-only area of the BSBI website (you'll need to have your password to hand – email us if you’ve forgotten it and don’t forget to include your membership number).

If you are not (yet) a BSBI member, you have two options: you will be able to buy the book soon from Summerfield Books and other natural history book-sellers. Or why not join BSBI and start enjoying all the benefits of membership, including this special offer? Take a look at our Join Us page which lists all the many benefits of BSBI membership and there's a secure payment option, making it very quick and easy for you to become a BSBI member and start getting involved. 

Angus in the field: the island on the horizon is Ailsa Craig, 
the most southerly of the Clyde Isles.
Image: M. Harding

Interview with BSBI President Micheline Sheehy Skeffington 2022-2024: Part Three

In Part One of our interview with BSBI President Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, we heard about her early days botanising in Dublin, in France and then in the tropical rainforest, and in Part Two we heard about her time back in Ireland and her recent successful struggle for gender equality in the University of Galway.

LM: So Micheline, bringing us up to the present day, you have been a BSBI County Recorder since 1982, served on the Committee for Ireland a few times, organising two BSBI main AGMs in Ireland and then in 2022 you became BSBI President – tell us more!

MSS: Well, it was an immense honour and privilege to be asked to serve as BSBI President – and quite a surprise! Having complained at the Galway AGM in 2011 about the lack of female presidents, I could hardly refuse! And, as only the third BSBI President from the island of Ireland, it was an opportunity to showcase Ireland (and raise some of our specific issues) to committees and BSBI members, but also to make the BSBI better-known in Ireland.

My first year as President was very eventful, starting as I did in late 2022, just as preparations for launching Plant Atlas 2020 were getting under way. The Committee for Ireland had decided, because recording and species’ distributions are different in Ireland, to publish a separate summary document called Ireland’s Changing Flora (above right). John Faulkner undertook this trojan piece of work and I supported him where I could, reading drafts and organising photos canvased from all the Irish County Recorders; I’m proud that we included at least one photo from each of those who sent me images. And, inspired by the Welsh plans for a Welsh language version, I’m especially proud of having instigated a bilingual text in English and Irish for the document. I felt it important to emphasise the Irish aspect of the BSBI for an Irish readership.

Plant Atlas 2020 launch:
 Micheline with Minister Noonan (on right) &
Matthew Jebb (National Botanic Gardens Director)
 in the National Herbarium, Dublin

LM: Could you also tell us how you met Minister Malcolm Noonan TD and what you two discussed?

MSS: As BSBI President, I was keen to help bring the Society more in contact with Irish governmental bodies such as the National Parks and Wildlife Service to find ways of collaborating. So I requested a meeting with Minister Noonan, Minister of State for Heritage, along with his PO for Conservation, Andy Bleasdale, a former PhD student of mine. A few weeks before Committee for Ireland invited him to officially launched Plant Atlas 2020 in Dublin, we discussed the value of atlas-type recording in monitoring what is sadly a decline in so many plant species. I emphasised the role BSBI can play in providing information as regards plant communities and habitat monitoring.

LM: Huge thanks to you for all your work promoting BSBI, and particularly the Plant Atlas project.

MSS: Yes, soon after meeting Minister Noonan, the Atlas launches were in full swing. Thanks to huge efforts of the BSBI comms people, we got unprecedented publicity, making headline national news in Ireland, as well as in Britain. Between us, we did a dozen interviews island-wide in Ireland, on national and local media (I managed to do two in Irish!). That was super. We got a lot of new membership as a result. I attended the main launch – and the Cambridge one – online, but I was at the Dublin and Belfast launches in person. After launching it in Dublin, Minister Noonan stayed for the whole event and afterwards was very taken with the National Herbarium in the Botanic Gardens! The Belfast launch was equally successful. Based in National Museums Northern Ireland’s Cultra Manor, it also had governmental and conservation interest and was a very useful exercise in meeting with relevant bodies.

Micheline with some of the organisers of the
 2023 BSBI Summer Meeting in Killarney;
Minister Noonan (4th from right)

LM: You were very involved in two meetings in 2023 – the BSBI Annual Summer Meeting in Killarney and the joint meeting with the Royal Entomological Society at Daneway Banks. What would you say were the highlights of these meetings?

MSS: Well yes, it was Field Meetings Secretary Jonathan Shanklin who said that now that there was an Irish President, it would be nice to hold the Summer Meeting in Ireland. My first response was ‘No way!’, since I put a huge amount of effort into organising the 2011 AGM meeting in Galway. But I was persuaded to run with it and decided the southwest was a good place to be based. The local team I recruited were superb and between us all, we hosted around 90 people, some having heard about it on Radio Kerry, and thanks to National Parks and Wildlife funding, we were able to organise some boat excursions that were the highlight of the event. It was also launched by Minister Noonan.

The huge Strawberry Tree on Rough Island;
copy of Webb's 'An Irish Flora' gives scale

Some attendees were lucky enough to go on the trip from Ross Island all the way through the lakes to Derrycunihy Woods, where friend and oakwoods expert, Prof. Daniel Kelly, expounded with great enthusiasm and knowledge about the ecology of the woods; a long-term research interest of his – including the bryophytes! The trip to Glencar woods and bog was a real success, as was the Banna Strand visit, with all its orchids. I was lucky to be on the other boat-led trip that included Rough Island (Lough Leane) where I found the biggest Arbutus trees I’ve ever seen! Nick Stewart accompanied us and gave an impromptu workshop on his aquatic finds over the lunch break.

Joint meeting with the RES at Daneway Banks

Tim Rich was super in guiding us through the intricacies of the local Whitebeam Sorbus species, including the unique S. scannelliana, named after famous Irish botanist, Maura Scannell. Everyone was very enthusiastic and seemed to enjoy every bit of it, including the great talks in the evening.

LM: Everyone said that was a great event! How about the Daneway Banks meeting?

MSS: That was an idea of mine. Having worked with Environmental Science (EV) colleagues, I am very aware that habitat management is different for invertebrates from that required by plant species. So it came up in emails with Chris Williams, a former EV PhD graduate of ours and he put me on to the Royal Entomological Society (RES). They were so enthusiastic, they took over the greater part of organising the event, suggesting Daneway Banks in Gloucestershire, which they help manage. 

It was a real success; thoroughly enjoyable and informative, with key talks to start off the day and a lovely trip on-site to see Large Blue butterflies (on left) – and great flora – on these limestone grasslands. I think we should do more such joint meetings to support interactions between our respective skills and specialisms.

LM: Yes, now you’ve started that trend I hope we’ll be looking to do more joint meetings in future.

MSS: Great! Also, as President and with no longer the need to record for Plant Atlas 2020, which had confined me to South-East Galway, I aimed to participate in field outings in Ireland and Britain. Sadly, I only managed a couple of the Aquatic Plant Project days and an almost-aquatic but wonderful trip to Mayo’s bogs in the driving rain! The Recorders’ Conference at FSC Preston Montford in October was hugely enjoyable, instructive and a great opportunity to meet recorders outside of Ireland.

LM: So that was 2023, what were your main activities in 2024?

Looking at minute clovers Trifolium spp. at 
the Summer Meeting on Guernsey

MSS: Following my aim to attend as many meetings as possible, I determined to attend the Summer Meeting again, this time in Guernsey. But I also resolved not to fly where at all possible, to do a small bit to curb climate change. So my partner Nick suggested we cycle there! With help from trains and ferries, we got there in five days via Brittany. It was a super meeting, wonderful hosts and superb plants. I’ve written more about it BSBI News.

I also attended the Wales Annual Meeting and took in a day’s outing in Somerset. And I ended my visits in early November at the very popular Scottish AGM and meeting. All these meetings were hugely worthwhile and for me were a great opportunity to meet so many interesting, knowledgeable, dedicated and fun BSBI members.

Before I became President, there had been an international botanists’ group, but it never met during my term. However, Spanish botanist, Xavier Picó, invited BSBI to the XX International Botanical Congress in Madrid with a view to holding a joint meeting. Travelling by train and ferry, I brought a poster about Plant Atlas 2020 and Trustee Richard Allanach brought both Atlas volumes! A meeting with Xavier, myself, Richard and Paul Ashton (image on left) resulted in plans for a joint meeting in Spain in 2026.

LM: Of course, another of the President’s duties is to liaise with the President of the Wild Flower Society about the annual Presidents’ Award. In 2023, the winners were the Plant Atlas 2020 authors, Pete Stroh, Kevin Walker, Tom Humphrey, Oli Pescott and Rich Burkmar, and in 2024 the Wild Flower Society proposed a title which I suspect was even closer to your heart?

Micheline & Janet John (WFS) present the 2023
Presidents' Prize to Plant Atlas 2020 authors

MSS: I was thrilled that an Irish Flora was chosen and yes, Paul Green’s Flora of County Wexford won him the richly deserved award. Paul’s such a terrific botanist and I suspect he has turned in more records than anyone else in Ireland for Plant Atlas2020. I particularly wanted to attend the award presentation. But attending the Wild Flower Society AGM on the coast of Norfolk proved too difficult. I am so grateful to Jo Parmenter who stood in for me and represented the BSBI.

LM: We have made the Flora of Wexford available as an eBook and it is selling very well! You’ve also published several papers in British & Irish Botany recently, based on your research into Ireland’s flora – could you tell us a bit more about those papers please?

MSS: Yes, British & Irish Botany has been incredibly good to us and our vagaries! I updated and re-worked my PhD student, Lieveke van Doorslaer’s research on Mackay’s heath Erica mackayana, published in New Journal of Botany in 2015. We provided cogent arguments as to why the species is most unlikely to be native to Ireland – and this has been supported by recent genetic research by our Galician friend, Jaime Fagúndez. I have since worked up a paper on the Kerry lily Simethis mattiazzii with Darach Lupton and of course more recently with my partner, Nick Scott, on the origins of Strawberry Tree Arbutus unedo in Ireland. Our latest publication reviews all the Hiberno-Lusitanian heathers and why we think they are all likely to have been introduced to Ireland. There are fascinating tales behind these Hiberno-Lusitanian species, some of which I recounted in my keynote talk at the 2023 British & Irish Botanical Conference in Newcastle.

Micheline and Nick with a large Strawberry Tree

LM: That was a very popular talk and we’re delighted that you gave another talk – albeit remotely - at last year’s British & Irish Botanical Conference, this time on the subject of the flora and conservation value of Ireland’s turloughs.

MSS: Yes, it’s hard to get to Britain from the west coast of Ireland. So I couldn’t manage to attend both the Scottish Botanists’ Conference and the British & Irish Botanical Conference a few weeks later. In 2024 I felt that I owed it to the Scots to be present – and was blown away by the day, with a huge attendance, great quality talks, very many exhibits and a great range of workshops to choose from. So, I’m sorry I couldn’t be in London in person as well but happily I was able to give my talk thanks to technology. As a plant ecologist, I’m very aware of plant communities and their habitat requirements, and I like the idea of some recording focusing on specific habitats, such as e.g. for the planned long-term phenology monitoring scheme. The question ‘What is a turlough?’ came up in the Botanical University Challenge and, as I’ve done much research on them with University of Galway colleagues, I chose to talk about these groundwater-fed systems, filling after high rainfall in winter and emptying in summer. The vegetation zones are a function of the flood duration and, as they are not intensively farmed, they act as refugia for rare plants and many invertebrates.

Micheline giving the keynote talk at the
2023 British & Irish Botanical Conference 

One of the last things I did was to have the issue of diversity and equality addressed more formally within the BSBI, so hopefully we’ll see some of the effects of that in years to come.

LM: Yes, the EDI Working Group has convened and we hope to publish something very soon. But tell us, what are your plans now that you’ve handed over the Presidential baton to Paul Ashton?

MSS: Well, first I want to wish new President Paul Ashton the very best and may he enjoy and find his term of office rewarding. For me, I will resume recording plant species in my vice-county, South-East Galway. There’s plenty of gaps there and a number of ‘Shanklins’ to visit – monads with few or no records to date, named for Jonathan Shanklin who loves nothing better than to record in hitherto unexplored corners of these islands. We have a keen Galway group and we can explore some of the remoter corners together. I also plan to work on a Rare Plant Register for SE Galway. There is also more to investigate in the Slieve Aughty Hills (another paper led by Cilian Roden is in prep. for the Irish Naturalists Journal) – and I am determined to get more filmy-fern and other pteridophyte records for the (slightly drier) side of those SE Galway hills. We also continue our research on our Lusitanian flora, now focusing on the British Lusitanian heathers.  And we are working with colleagues in the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin and A Coruña in Spain on a detailed whole-genome investigation of the Strawberry Tree Arbutus unedo that is shaping up to give some very interesting indications of its ancient movements and transport in western Europe. I also aim to attend more BSBI field and regional meetings, especially the hugely enjoyable Summer Meetings – the next one in Scotland! I have learned so much about the BSBI during my presidency and met so many wonderful people and I want to thank everyone who helped, encouraged and supported me during my term of office and I am very keen to keep up those contacts and friendships with a bit more leisure to enjoy them! Míle buíochas.

LM: Thanks for talking to us Micheline, and for all your excellent work as President promoting the BSBI and botany in Ireland. Thanks a million and all the best!

Sharpen Your Botanical Skills: BSBI's New Webinar Series on Difficult Plants

Water Mint Mentha aquatica
Image: S. Thomas

An exciting new series of webinars is planned for 2025. They have been organised by Sam Thomas, BSBI England Officer, so over to Sam to tell us more:

"For botanists and plant enthusiasts across Britain and Ireland, the challenge of identifying certain plant groups can be both daunting and rewarding. We’re excited to announce a new series of webinars designed to demystify some of our more tricky plant groups. Join us for the opportunity to learn from national experts in three online Zoom sessions.

These webinars are perfect for anyone looking to refine their botanical skills, from more experienced botanists and BSBI County Recorders to those just beginning their plant identification journey. They are free to attend but if you’d like to make a donation towards the BSBI’s work then the option to do so is available on the booking pages. 

Hungarian Mullein
Verbascum speciosum
Image: S. Thomas

Here's a summary of what's in store:

Mulleins (Verbascum) of Britain and Ireland with Mike Crewe

Tue 22 Apr 2025 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM via Zoom - Booking Link

Identification of Verbascum species in the UK isn't always easy, especially with non-native species and hybridisation. We will start with an overview of the distribution and identification of the genus before looking more closely at the native and more frequent alien species that have been recorded in Britain and Ireland. This session will be delivered by Mike Crewe who is the BSBI’s national expert referee for Verbascum as well as an experienced nature tour leader, botanist and birder. 

Mints (Mentha) of Britain and Ireland with Ambroise Baker

Wed 7 May 2025 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM via Zoom - Booking Link 

Mints are a challenging but rewarding group which are often neglected by recorders. In this webinar Ambroise will help attendees improve their Mentha recording by providing an overview of the Mentha diversity encountered by field botanists in Britain and Ireland, discussing the recording challenges and reviewing some of the more ambiguous key characters. Ambroise is a keen field botanist and a plant ecologist by training whose interests include urban floras, grasses, bryophytes, and aquatic plants. He's also going to be leading a weekend-long workshop about mints in September, so if this webinar whets your appetite, you'll be able to follow up with some more in-depth study.

Oxtongue Broomrape Orobanche picridis
Image: S. Thomas

Broomrapes (Orobanche & Phelipanche) of Britain and Ireland with Chris Thorogood

Tue 10 Jun 2025 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM via Zoom - Booking Link

Broomrapes are among the most enigmatically beautiful plants. They are parasitic, therefore lack leaves and chlorophyll, and they have aroused curiosity for centuries. In recent years, broomrapes have sparked interest among plant enthusiasts in a similar way to orchids. In this talk Chris Thorogood (Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum), international broomrape specialist and co-author of Broomrapes of Britain & Ireland, No.22 in the series of BSBI Handbooks, will introduce some broomrapes from around the world, then focus on the species found in Britain and Ireland and how to identify them.

Huge thanks are due to all three experts for agreeing to present so please do make the most of their time and come along. Even if you can’t make it on the day we’ll be recording the webinars for the BSBI YouTube channel so you can catch up or rewatch in the future".