Attenborough's Hawkweed meets Sir David Attenborough!

Tim Rich and Attenborough's Hawkweed
Image: J. Daggett

Lovely to see BSBI expert botanist Dr Tim Rich meeting his hero Sir David Attenborough on BBC's One Show just now! 

Tim was in the studio with Sir David and had brought along a small live specimen of Hieracium attenboroughianum. This is the Hawkweed which Tim discovered in Wales last year and named after his hero. The new species was described in New Journal of Botany last December.

The programme is available here on iPlayer (around 10 minutes in) so even if you missed it, you can catch the encounter between Sir David and our Tim, and hear how the young Tim was inspired to become a botanist/ecologist after seeing Sir David's TV programme World About Us. 

Let's hope that a few youngsters watching the programme are also inspired to follow a career in natural history. Maybe in a few decades, we'll turn on our TVs and see a fresh-faced youngster presenting Tim with a new species named after him?!

Three cheers for Sir David Attenborough and Dr Tim Rich, informing and inspiring the next generation of naturalists!