Botanical snippets: opportunities for training, celebrating and getting involved.

Mystery plant #1
Image: C. Ferguson-Smyth

Sorry the Blog's been a bit quiet this past week. Between editing copy for the April issue of New Journal of Botany (more on this soon!) and updating the website software (nearly there after a few hiccups, sorry), it's been all go here at BSBI Central. But here are a few snippets that have come in during the past week:

1. A symposium is being held to mark the 50th anniversary of the Biological Records Centre. David Roy emails "We hope that you will join us in celebrating the rich and inspiring legacy of biological recording in Britain and Ireland. The symposium will review the causes of change in species distributions and consider the opportunities for biological recording which will be presented by scientific and technological developments. 

Mystery plant #2
Image: C. Ferguson-Smyth

"The symposium will be held in Bath from 27th to 29th June 2014 and will be combined with a field visit to Salisbury Plain – see www.brc.ac.uk/brc50.htm for more details, including how to register. There is no charge for attending the symposium but pre-booking is essential. Early registration is strongly recommended as places are likely to be in high demand".

2. Jim McIntosh, BSBI Scottish Officer, has been in touch about three workshops on identifying plant families, to be held across Scotland this year. Find out more here.  

Mystery plant #3
Image: C. Ferguson-Smyth

3. Sue Townsend and T&E have found yet another way to support the next generation of botanists and help them as they learn. Sue emails about the Young Darwin initiative – she is "Getting some material together that we can share with BSBI members to demonstrate the support BSBI gives to the course and the good learning outcomes that come from it." She also points out that around halfway through this video there are some images of Sue herself teaching botany to those Young Darwin scholars.

 4. Finally, we have been invited to participate in an event in Wales, to celebrate biodiversity. Every year, Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly share the annual Go Wild! event, and this year it is Blaenau Gwent’s turn to host the event, which will take place on the 14th June 2014 at Parc Bryn Bach in Tredegar. 

Mystery plant #4
Image: C. Ferguson-Smyth

Go Wild! Organiser Katie Partington asks if BSBI would like to have a stand promoting the society's work and botanical recording in general, and I'm wondering if any local members would like to get involved with this? Katie says "The event is well attended by local wildlife nature conservation organisations and is well known by the general public, with approximately 3000 visitors if the weather is favourable. This year we having a pollinator themed event and we are requesting that attendees try and tailor their displays to fit the theme if possible". 

If you are interested, why not get in touch with me to arrange which BSBI display materials you would like? We have a range of BSBI literature that we can send you for distribution and/or display, and there are also BSBI banners and posters that can be booked now and couriered to you in time for the event. 

The images illustrating this post - four "mystery plants" for you to try and name! - are all by Claudia Ferguson-Smyth, who has been working on a new cover for NJB Volume 4 - we have three issues for you in 2014. Sneak previews to follow as soon as possible :-) 

New Tasselweed video

Lliam Rooney's latest video is now available and it is possibly the *Citizen Kane of films about aquatics. Yes, Ruppia: the Movie is now out so grab some popcorn, switch your phone off and click here-->

Ruppia cirrhosa Spiral Tasselweed
Image: L. Rooney

Lliam says "I hope you enjoy it! It took a lot of doing to make it, but I am very happy with it... now it's finished!" 

And don't worry, the Horsetail videos haven't gone away, I've just moved the links up the page a bit - glance up above the date and you'll see the titles. I thought the Ruppia video could hog the limelight for a while. 

*This may mean that Claudia Ferguson-Smyth is the Eisenstein of aquatics. Battleship Potamogeton? Follow the link above to watch Claudia's P. epihydrus video.

Andy's Botanical Finds: part one

Andy Amphlett, VC Recorder for Banffshire, is certainly quick off the mark when gauntlets are thrown down. Within a few hours of my post about Brian Laney's botanical finds, Andy emailed: "Re-finds of taxa after many years, even 100 years, may be quite a frequent occurrence.  It’s something I seem to note in BSBI news now and then.  A recent-ish contribution of mine along these lines is:

"Amphlett, A. (2011).  A native population of Brachypodium pinnatum (Heath False-brome) in Banffshire (v.c.94), re-found after 144 years.  BSBI News 117, pp. 16 – 18". 

Andy also says "Of course a new vice-county record can be considered the first record in the post-glacial period, which rather beats the 100 year perspective". 

So this time let's throw down a pair of gauntlets -  have you re-found a taxon after 100 years or recorded a new taxon for your vice-county? Email me your record and we can share it here, and please can we also invent a one-word term for a taxon which is refound after a century, so I don't have to keep writing it out in full? A centenaritaxon perhaps?

Brian's Botanical Finds: Part One

Some botanists just have a knack of spotting rare plants in the field - not to mention the roadside, petrol station forecourt or anywhere else that a plant may manage to grow. Even when botanising in a large group, there is often one person who keeps finding things before anyone else. Which is great, although you do think, why didn't I see that? Some people just seem to be extra-good at spotting something new and unusual, even if they aren't sure straight away exactly what it is! 

C. oppositifolium
Image: C. Farmer

But in that small group of particularly eagle-eyed botanists, who also have first-rate ID skills, there is one name that is becoming a bit legendary. Brian Laney (VC32) just keeps on refinding species that haven't been seen for over a century. 

We don't know how he does it, but... he does it.

Brian found "Opposite leaved golden saxifrage Chrysosplenium oppositifolium Rare for Northants. I rediscovered the species in Shrine's Wood, an outlying part of Whittlewood Forest on the county boundary with Buckinghamshire. It is the first record from this forest for 116 years."

So here is the first in an occasional series of Brian's Botanical Finds, and a gauntlet thrown down. If you are - or you know - one of those eagle-eyed botanists who have re-discovered a plant in your vice-county which had not been recorded for over a century, please send us the record with a photo and we'll publish it here. Maybe I'm wrong and there are hundreds of Brian Laneys out there re-finding interesting plants. Hard to imagine, but wouldn't it be great for British botany if we had a Brian Laney in every vice-county?

The Great, the Marsh and the Water... (Horsetails)

And here is the the third and final instalment in Lliam's trilogy of Horsetail ID videos. -->>

Unless of course he does a Star Wars and we have horsetail prequels. Not sure how photogenic E. hyemale will prove...

I gather Lliam is considering Ruppia (Tassel-weed) for his next genus. Watch this space!

One BSBI member's first visit to a herbarium.

Himantoglossum longibracteata (detail)
Reprinted by kind permission of the
Natural History Museum 

I spotted this great post about one botanist's first visit to Manchester Herbarium, which obviously brought out his Hogwarts-obsessed inner child. 

This is a common response to herbaria, where you find centuries-old ways of preserving plants, and specimens that may have been collected by Victorian plant-hunters (and are often stored in buildings of a similar age), juxtaposed with 21st century ways of recording data, monitoring changes in plant distributions and extracting plant material for DNA analysis. 

Apparently there are 72 different uses already identified for herbaria. They really are botanical treasure-troves and delving into them seems to bring out the wide-eyed inner child in every botanist. 

Laptops rub shoulders with C19th specimens
(the plants, not the volunteers or curator).
The Herbarium at University of Leicester (LTR).
Image: L. Marsh

At the BSBI's recent AEM, I heard a group of well-known, expert botanists (no names, sorry!) agreeing that the reason they became botanists was so they could run off to the woods and look at stuff. So now you know that you're not the only one - I suspect that all botanists are just big kids who want to see nice plants in nice places, preferably with a gang of botanically-inclined mates. And 'plants' includes the pressed specimens stored in a herbarium, and the extra stuff that goes with each specimen, like the collection details and sometimes a hand-painted illustration (see image above).


No surprise either to find out that Tim, the author of the Herbarium post, is a BSBI member, so his Blog called 'from here to ecology' is now the 29th entry in the list on the right of Blogs by BSBI members.

Treasure chest aka
herbarium cabinet, RBGE
Image: C. Metherell

And a Blog by the charmingly-named Linden Hawthorne, who has just joined the BSBI, becomes number 30. Click here, or follow the link on the right, to find out more about Three Hagges Jubilee Wood and the excellent work that Linden and her gang of botanically-inclined mates are doing to re-engage children with the natural world. 

It would be great if we big kids could let the smaller kids in on the secret - running off to the woods to look at stuff is great fun, there are loads of resources to help you ID any stuff you find and - best of all - stuff just gets better the longer and closer you look at it! 

Great Horsetail - another great ID video!

E. telmateia
Image: L. Rooney

I can hardly keep up with Lliam Rooney - no sooner do I post here and tweet about his excellent new Marsh Horsetail video, than I see that he's made another video, this time on how to ID the Great Horsetail Equisetum telmateia. See both videos here --->>

The maps at the end show distribution of Giant Horsetail in Kent. I suspect that Lliam has been using Quentin's helpful video, showing how to make a customised distribution map for any species in your vice-county. But if you want to see national distribution of Giant Horsetail - or any other plant recorded in Britain or Ireland - you need to go here for our tetrad maps, here for our hectad maps and here for the Big Database. 

And when you're ready for some advanced Equisetum ID, try the Plant Crib pages.