BSBI President in online Q&A. 

Ian Denholm and Martin Godfrey at the BSBI AGM 2013
Photo: L. Marsh

Our President, Ian Denholm, is to appear in a live, on-line Q&A on the subject of 'What impact will UK biodiversity decline have?" For one hour on Wednesday, 18th September, starting at 2pm, Ian and other experts on the panel will be available to answer your questions. 

The event is organised by Sense About Science, who define themselves as "a charitable trust that equips people to make sense of scientific and medical claims in public discussion". 

More details here: http://www.senseaboutscience.org/ pages/biodiversity-decline.html and you can submit your questions via Twitter or email plantsci@senseaboutscience.org

Ian Denholm

Ian is used to helping people make sense of science (he is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Sciences at the University of Herts.) and his long experience as a research scientist (he spent decades running the Plant and Invertebrate Ecology Unit at Rothamsted Research) will also stand him in good stead. 

Ian can also draw on years of experience out in the field, seeing the impact of biodiversity decline at first hand. The photograph above shows him in typical field botanist's pose - on his knees in a wet field, in the rain, peering at a plant. And enjoying every minute of it!

So do check out the Q&A on the 18th September and maybe submit a question for our new President?

Talk by BSBI Vice-President

Horniman's Food Gardens
Image: Horniman Museum and Gardens

Roy Vickery, one of BSBI's Vice-Presidents, is leading a guided tour around the Horniman's Food Gardens in Forest Hill, London. 

Roy will be talking about the medicinal use of plants through the ages. 'Healing through cabbages, carrots and weeds' starts at 6pm next Monday, 9th September, lasts for an hour and costs £3.  

Find out more here:

Events - Visit - Horniman Museum and Gardens

Planning for the Annual Exhibition Meeting. 

Meetings & Communications Committee.
Photo: L. Marsh

BSBI's Meetings & Communications Committee met today in the Angela Marmont Centre at the Natural History Museum to plan future meetings (indoor and in the field) and to look at how we communicate what BSBI is doing to our members, the media, the wider public and the scientific community. Our new President, Ian Denholm, is also Chair of what was simply Meetings Committee until today, and has been a driving force behind recent publicity and outreach initiatives, so we all agreed this afternoon to change the name of the Committee to reflect this widening of its remit.

One item on today's agenda was to look at how preparations are going for this year's Annual Exhibition Meeting. We are holding the AEM in London this year, at the Natural History Museum on 23rd November, and the theme is Plants - Publicity - People. 

Ian Denholm and Uta Hamzaoui planning the AEM.
Photo: L. Marsh

Uta Hamzaoui is the Committee member co-ordinating the event. She is preparing a flyer about the AEM, which will go out to all members in the next issue of BSBI News, but the event is also open to anyone interested in the wildflowers of Britain and Ireland. I'll be posting details here about the AEM, and there will be info on the website soon, so non-members can see what is on offer and whether it's worth dropping in on 23rd November to find out more. 

The AEM features talks, posters, exhibits, presentations, natural history booksellers and all things botanical, as well as a chance to meet other botanists, from beginner to expert, and find out what BSBI has to offer. And it's free!

How does a botanist "get to work" (part two)

The second in an occasional series. 

Anybody else remember a 1980s Army recruitment advert which showed young men jumping out of planes and into jeeps and completely failed to mention that you might have to actually kill people at some stage in your Army career? Well, that was the inspiration for this series on 'How a botanist gets to work'. 

So if you abseil or canoe to your botanical work and then spend 5 hours on hands and knees peering through your handlens, guess which photo I'd like to see?

The photograph on the right shows how Jim McIntosh's colleague gets to work up on Salisbury Crags/Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. Jim holds a meeting here on Arthur's Seat most years in May, particularly aimed at beginners and those new to BSBI. Well worth going to!


Details of all BSBI field meetings, including those where beginners are especially welcomed and supported, can be found in our Field Meetings Diary here. 

And the image on the left shows how Paul Smith and Richard Pankhurst were able to reach the floriferous isle of Gaskeir (off the coast of Lewis) last summer. 

Botanists and boatmen may seem like strange bedfellows, but how else is a botanist to reach those remoter islands? Kayak? Now that's a photo I'd like to see, kayaking botanist with vasculum and handlens... anybody?

Send any good images to me at publicity@bsbi.org.uk please!

How does a botanist "get to work" (part one)?

The first in an occasional series.

The photograph on the right shows the 'transport of delight' that conveyed Lynne Farrell over the final few metres so she could reach her final tetrad on an islet off the coast of Mull.

And below, you can see the helicopter that Mick Crawley uses to get to St Kilda, where he botanises regularly. 

I did ask Mick for a shot of himself being dropped out of a helicopter, like Milk Tray Man (for under-40s, Milk Tray Man was the bloke in an old TV advert for chocolates). 

But Mick just smiled mysteriously, so we may never get to see the BSBI's answer to James Bond in action. Shame.

If you have a stereotype-shattering way of getting to your botanical work, please send me an image and I can share it. 

Canoes, horse and cart, light aircraft etc. all welcome. But no tanks, please - "Wild Things" covered that perfectly well on TV last year!

New BSBI Video. 

We were filmed for Birdfair TV on our award-winning stand, and the video is now available on YouTube here: 
 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsxhHQYHSmcrggSiXj_rOAA
or you can download it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ysqsmdqgm7a7xdx/BSBI.mp4

Ian Denholm and Alyson Freeman at Birdfair 2013.

The video features Ian Denholm talking about how BSBI can help you get involved in plant recording in your area. Alyson Freeman, Co-ordinator of the new North Northants group, talks about why she records plants with BSBI. And the video also features an annoying woman wittering on about outreach... that would be me then.

No wonder Ian and Alyson are smiling in this photo - Best Stand Award, new BSBI video...
  

Lynne's 332nd and final tetrad!

Lynne in her final tetrad, on the islet of Maisgeir, 
to which  she sailed on the MV Birthe Marie 
(seen in background).   

Lynne Farrell, VC Recorder for the Isle of Mull, has just completed a mammoth task. She has spent the past 17 years recording the plants of Mull for a new Flora and tells me that, on 7th August, she surveyed her 332nd and final tetrad! 

If you are new to recording: tetrads are 2km x 2km grid squares: our 1962 Atlas divided Britain and Ireland up into squares so that we could record the plants in each square on a regular basis and so map the distributions of all our wild plants over time. There are 332 tetrads on Mull and its associated islands. 

Lynne tells me "I had always thought that the last tetrad would probably be on some remote hillside, but it proved to be three remote islets, visited by sailing boat on 7th August. I was accompanied by several of my stalwart recorders and several locals who had also helped in one way or another." She added that during her 17 years recording on Mull, she had "come to know both the landscape and the locals, and I am addicted to the area."

Lynne and Team Farrell on the MV Birthe Marie
Image: John Clare

I hear that Lynne and Team Farrell celebrated by "breaking open the champagne bottles somewhere off Staffa and we were escorted back to Fionnophort harbour by a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins. They must have known it was a special occasion!"

The last Flora of Mull was by Jermy and Crabbe, published in 1978, and we'll be using it for a while longer, as Lynne's Flora won't be published for a few years yet - surveying and field recording form Step One in the long process towards publication, and Lynne says: "Now begins the serious business of writing up the new Flora". But first, she is preparing a fuller account of how she completed that final tetrad for the next issue of BSBI News, due out in September.