New Year Plant Hunt 2020: Day Three

Day Three of the New Year Plant Hunt saw group hunts as far afield as Wiltshire, Surrey, Northamptonshire, Caernarvonshire, Fife and Dumfriesshire, with solo hunters and small family groups out hunting from Tywardreath in Cornwall (71 species blooming including slender knapweed, balm-leaved figwort and cornflower) to Thurso on the northern tip of Scotland (10 species flowering including ivy-leaved toadflax and winter heliotrope). 

In Ireland, hunters were out from Westport, Co. Mayo (19 species blooming including toad rush and bulbous buttercup) to the Grand Canal in Dublin (23 species including feverfew and pellitory-of-the-wall). 

Interesting species spotted in bloom on Day Three included keeled-fruited cornsalad seen by Karen Woolley in Devon (image above right) and Cape figwort spotted by Jonathan Mortin in Derbyshire (top right in the montage below). 
    

As well as all the usual habitats where botanists hunt for plants, some plant hunters headed up mountains to find out what was blooming there. 

Sarah Watts, who works for the National Trust for Scotland and authored this excellent paper about the lovely snow pearlwort Sagina nivalis for British & Irish Botany, BSBI's free, on-line, Open Access scientific journal, went up Meall na Samhna and found cross-leaved heath blooming at 400m. 

Then she did a second Hunt and found annual meadow-grass flowering at 403m up Birnam Hill. 

Can anyone beat that? More info about the links between plants and altitude on this webpage.
   

Cross-leaved heath at 400m
Image: S. Rawlinson

Sarah suggests a challenge as part of next year's New Year Plant Hunt, to find the highest plant in bloom. Who else would be up for that? We might even try to drum up a prize for the winner...   

Some botanists found only one or two 'usual suspects' in bloom, such as gorse spotted by Heather near Durham - the only species she found in flower following heavy frosts in the area during December. If Heather's name sounds familiar, that's because she's a two-time winner of the BSBI Photographic Competition.

With the heavy rain earlier this year following a long hot dry spell, and frosts in some areas in December but not in other areas, Kevin Walker's analysis of results will be particularly interesting this year - we can probably expect a strong correlation between meteorological data and plant records. I wonder how this year's analysis is going to compare with previous years?

The lists of most frequently seen species are also looking very similar to last year although so far there are fewer records of hazel in flower (people have been on the look-out for those distinctive red stigmas on the tiny female flowers) and there seems to be more cow parsley in flower, which can sometimes look a bit odd at this time of year. 

Gorse photographed by Heather Kelly

Several very accomplished botanists have circulated photos to check if the plant they are looking at really is cow parsley!  

The similarly named but much rare corn parsley was found by ace plant-spotter Brian 'Eagle-Eyes' Laney during the group Hunt in Brackley, Northants. 

It wasn't in flower, just a rosette, but this species is on the Rare Plant Register for the county so Brian was very pleased! 

Finally: botanists are very resourceful and always find ways to surmount any obstacles they encounter. Kent botanist Owen found himself stuck in a traffic jam on the way back from a trip to Wales so what did he do? A central reservation New Year Plant Hunt from the car! 

Day Four summary to follow...

New Year Plant Hunt 2020: Day Two

Hieracium argillaceum
in Sleaford, South Lincolnshire
Image: S. Lambert

The second Day of this year's New Year Plant Hunt and after a good start yesterday the records kept on pouring in today. 

Group Hunts took place across Britain and Ireland, giving people a chance to botanise together. 

County Recorders for Hampshire and South Lincolnshire respectively led groups out hunting; Sarah Lambert, County Recorder for South Lincolnshire, and her team of 11 botanists found 55 species in bloom, including Hieracium argillaceum, only the third post-2000 record for this species in the county. 

Joshua and a daisy in bloom, Univ Reading
Image courtesy of J. Ajowele

It was also Sarah's birthday so we're delighted that she chose to spend it with her fellow botanists - Happy Birthday Sarah! 

In Norfolk, Anne and Simon Harrap (of 'Harrap's Wild Flowers' fame) and their team found 74 species in bloom including some nice "arable weeds" such as dwarf spurge, sharp-leaved fluellen and corn marigold. 

On the University of Reading campus, Joshua Ajowele (one of Dr M's Plant Diversity MSc students) only had time to survey about a third of the campus but still managed to find 20 species in bloom and was very happy with his results - well done Joshua! 

Strawberry tree blooming in Killarney
Image: J. Hamilton

In Monmouthshire, the local botany group were out hunting and found quite a few species flowering (list to follow) but over in Radnorshire the Elan Valley hunters found only gorse in bloom. In Portishead, Fred Rumsey and Helena Crouch notched up 70 species in bloom including sea aster, rock samphire and alexanders, whereas up in south Yorkshire many lists were coming in with only 12-20 species in flower. All those lists are equally important, however long or short!

Over in Kerry, Jessica Hamilton and her team recorded 45 species blooming around the Muckross Peninsula in Killarney - that's two more than the same route last year. Once again the strawberry tree, a local speciality, was in bloom. Up in Co. Down, the County Recorder Graham Day led the first of two planned Hunts and notched up 34 species in bloom.

BSBI Comms Officer (on left) haranguing
defenceless County Recorders Brian Laney (Northants.)
 and John & Monika Walton (Warks.) -
they're examining fleabane phyllaries;
I'm brandishing Bob Leaney's fleabane article
Image: C. Dwyer 

Several members of the New Year Plant Hunt Support Team slipped away from the Help Desk to go out hunting - many thanks to other team members George and Ellen who held the fort. George had already been out the day before on Guernsey with his family and they found 19 species in bloom. 

In Leicestershire, three of us (Ciara, Brian and me, Louise) joined two of the Leicestershire County Recorders and two more from Warwickshire. Brian is also a County Recorder (for Northants.) and so, with 17 people in the group we were hopeful of a good list. 

Determined to get to grips with those pesky fleabanes, I took a copy of BSBI News no. 135 along with me so we could check what we saw against Bob Leaney's excellent illustrated article on how to separate the four main species. All of the ones we examined - and there were many! - had very hairy phyllaries but no sign of red tips so we decided they were all Guernsey fleabane Erigeron sumatrensis. 

No sign at all of the less hairy Canadian fleabane E. canadensis which used to be the most common species in these parts (and across much of England). BSBI members can download BSBI News no. 135 and all other recent issues of our membership magazine from the password-protected members-only area of the BSBI website. Email me if you can't remember your password.

Common whitlowgrass
https://www.floralimages.co.uk/page.
php?taxon=erophila_verna,1
Image courtesy of
John Crellin/ Floral Images

We followed the same route as last year and actually got slightly fewer species in bloom: 52 compared to 57 last year. A few notable omissions: no common whitlowgrass Erophila verna in bloom, although we saw lots of rosettes. 

Sarah Whild had reported the same thing the day before - she and her very experienced team of Shropshire botanists couldn't find a single whitlowgrass in bloom. 

BSBI Head of Science Kevin Walker had been out hunting in Yorkshire and made the same observation. He also failed to see green alkanet Pentaglottis sempervirens in bloom, whereas there had been hundreds of records of it last year. So, those are two species to watch out for during this year's Hunt. 

This is the advantage of the Hunt, lots of botanists out across Britain and Ireland over the same time period, and all the records collected will be analysed by Kevin and correlated with meteorological data so he can see what patterns are emerging. 

Many solo recorders were out hunting too. David in Swanage notched up 115 species - the longest list so far, including quite a few garden escapes such as Mexican fleabane, Love-in-a-mist and Adria bellflower. 

Gigi and the field pansy she found
Image: K. Widdowson

But sometimes it's the quality rather than the quantity that counts: Gigi Widdowson was out helping her daddy Kevin do his New Year Plant Hunt and found her favourite plant, Field Pansy. It was also Kevin's birthday so that must have been a nice birthday present! 

Recorders in areas such as Northumberland, Lancashire, central and northern Scotland hunted for up to three hours but found nothing in bloom. 

We are very grateful to receive their 'nil records' emails with the grid ref of where they searched. These are being stored in a separate folder so Kevin Walker will have access to them when he comes to start his analysis.   

By the end of the day, 251 lists had been submitted and 423 species recorded in bloom. What will the third day of the Hunt bring? Watch this space to find out!

New Year Plant Hunt 2020: Day One

Sandy and Leif use 'Baby Stace' for plant ID
Image: J. Wright

The first day of the 2020 New Year Plant Hunt was only 9 minutes old when the first plant records pinged onto the Results map and were shared on Twitter. 

Ger Scollard, who also recorded the first flowers of 2019, submitted date-stamped records of winter heliotrope and smooth sow-thistle blooming in Co. Kerry. 

It was half an hour later when Sophie Leguil, on her way home from London fireworks, submitted records of Mexican fleabane, annual meadow-grass, daisy and Serbian bellflower. And so the 2020 Hunt was underway...

Small scabious blooming in Horncastle,
 NYPH 2020
Image: R. Scopes

Wednesday morning saw a team of plant-hunters including Sandy Knapp, Head of Plants at the Natural History Museum, and Orchid Hunter Leif Bersweden out in Chelsea where they managed 41 species in bloom; they also ate a lot of gingerbread and made at least one visit to the pub! 

New Year Plant Hunting often has a very strong social element to it - the Warrington Plant Group tweeted nearly as much about the delicious roast lunch and the great company they enjoyed as they did about the 37 species they recorded. 
  

Members of James' team on the north-east
New Year Plant Hunt-off
Image: J. Common

Up in Northumbria, the north-east New Year Plant Hunt-off kicked off with James Common's team exploring (sub)urban habitats in Heaton, while former BSBI President Chris Metherell led his team to Holy Island. James and co notched up 40 species... and so did Chris & co - a great relief to declare a draw for the Hunt-off! Chris's team found dense-flowered fumitory, a nice record. 

Meanwhile two teams of plant hunters were out in Norfolk and also enjoying a friendly competition to see who could notch up the longest list. They each recorded 50 species so again, fisticuffs were averted and they all sat down to eat pizza together at the end of the day!

The Glengarriff team and some of
the flowers they spotted
Image courtesy of C. Heardman

Current BSBI President Lynne Farrell went out hunting with three friends around Arnside and they managed 43 species in bloom including tansy, goat's-beard and sea radish. That's three more than her predecessor as President. Not that it's a competition...  

Group Hunts took place in Devon, Nottingham and Whitby; 20 eagle-eyed botanists met up at Glengarriff Woods and recorded 51 species in bloom; and County Recorders Oisin and Mairead (who recently got married, aaahhh!) found 10 species in bloom on Inch Island, Co. Donegal.

Seaside daisy naturalised in Folkestone
Image: D. Steere

Arthur Chater recorded 60 species in the Aberystwyth area; members of the Orkney Field Club were out hunting (list not yet submitted) and at the other end of Britain, Rosemary and Liz on Scilly notched up 32 species including rock samphire and Bermuda-buttercup. 

Seaside daisy was blooming in Folkestone, small scabious was out in Horncastle and across England people were spotting the tiny red flowers on hazel. 

As in previous years, daisy, dandelion, annual meadow-grass and groundsel were among the most frequently recorded plants. 

Paul Green's montage of some of
the flowers he recorded in Co. Wexford 

The longest list of the day - 85 species - came from Paul Green who was out recording in Co. Wexford. 

But equally important were the people who braved the elements to hunt in northern and upland parts of Britain and found nothing at all in bloom. Those nil records are also important if we are to get a true picture of how our wild and naturalised plants across Britain and Ireland are responding to changing weather patterns. 

By the end of Day One, 115 lists had been submitted via the recording app and 327 species had been recorded in bloom. A great start! Watch this space to find out what happens on Day Two...

2019: a great year for BSBI members

New Year Plant Hunters in January 2019
Image: L. Marsh

As 2019 draws to a close, this is a good time to reflect on all BSBI's many achievements over the past year and to say a huge THANK YOU to our wonderful members who made it all possible.

We kicked off in January with record participation in the New Year Plant Hunt - 1,473 people took part - and we reached millions of listeners via an interview about the Hunt on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 

In February we launched British & Irish Botany (B&IB), our new online, Open Access scientific journal. BSBI Head of Ops Jane Houldsworth (aka Superwoman) managed to find a software/ platform package which allowed us to do everything B&IB's predecessor, New Journal of Botany, had done but for a fraction of the cost. As the year ends we have just published our fourth bumper issue and readers seem very pleased with the content.

A rare photo of our limelight-shunning Head of
Ops, Jane Houldsworth (on right) with
Christine and Caroline from CASS
Image: L. Marsh 

Our website underwent a springtime freshen up, making BSBI resources such as Species Accounts and plant distribution maps more easily accessible than ever to members and the wider botanical community as they entered their final season of recording for Atlas 2020. BSBI Database Officer Tom Humphrey ran a quick end of year total earlier today and we can confirm a staggering 46,314,329 records submitted so far and more still pouring in to our Database - one of the world's largest - as we approach the Atlas 2020 deadline. That's an astonishing achievement by BSBI's volunteer recorders! 

When Chris Miles, Chair of the BSBI Board, told us at the 2019 Exhibition Meeting that the collective effort of BSBI volunteers is worth an estimated £10 million per year, he wasn't exaggerating. Our Annual Reviews tell you more about all the successes our members achieve each year. Read the latest Annual Review here. 

Happy botanists at the 2019
BSBI Exhibition Meeting
Image: R. Blackhall-Miles

The Exhibition Meeting itself was also a huge success - highest ever attendance figures and more younger participants than ever before. 

The 2019 Scottish Botanists' Conference was equally successful - the largest ever turn-out, as far as we know, for a botanical event in Scotland.

2019 saw some exceptional BSBI publications. Angus Hannah's Isle of Bute Flora went on to win the BSBI/ WFS Presidents' Award; the BSBI Handbook on Gentians - by Tim Rich and Andy McVeigh - is a fine addition to the series; Grassland plants of the British & Irish lowlands by Pete Stroh, Kevin Walker et al. is selling like hot cakes; and the 2nd edition of John Poland and Eric Clement's Vegetative Key to the British Flora is at the printers and should be with us in around a fortnight.

Trevor James
Image courtesy of
Herts. Natural History Society

The achievements of two notable BSBI botanists were acknowledged: in November, Clive Stace (author of the New Flora of the British Isles aka the Botanists' Bible) received the 2019 Marsh Botany award and Trevor James (BSBI County Recorder for Herts. and former editor of BSBI News) was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2020 New Year's Honours List for services to nature conservation. 

BSBI data fed into the 2019 State of Nature reports - they made sobering reading about declines in our wild flower populations, which need the support of a dedicated botanical community, and the data we collect, more than ever if we are to document, monitor and hopefully, finally, begin to address those declines. 

Fortunately our botanical community is continuing to grow. BSBI membership saw a 3% increase in 2019 and we passed the 3,000 mark for the first time in our history, ending the year with more than 3,100 members and extending further our social media reach. The more members we have and the more records in our Database, the louder our voice as we speak to policy-makers, landowners and agencies.

BSBI staff, trustees and officers at the start
of the first workshop in the
CASS-led Resilience project
Image: L. Marsh 

But the Society doesn't plan to rest on its laurels: thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, we've been able to work with the acclaimed CASS Business School, Centre for Charity Effectiveness to ensure that we are ready to meet the challenges of the future. 

This note by Chairman of the Board Chris Miles explains what the Resilience project is all about, and how it's helping BSBI define what we stand for and ensure that we can achieve what we want to achieve in the next five years. Exciting times ahead so watch this space!

But first we have a New Year Plant Hunt starting in the morning and applications for our 2020 our grants programme also open  tomorrow, so we can support even more botanists as they sharpen their ID skills and help us understand more about the British and Irish flora. Here's to a great year ahead for BSBI's botanical community and a huge thank you to all our members who made 2019 a year to remember. 

BSBI Training Grants Helping Botanists in 2019: Part Six

Earlier this month we heard from Claire about the training course she attended at FSC Slapton Ley, having been awarded a BSBI Training Grant.

Now we hear from aspiring botanist Julie was able to attend four one-day plant ID courses during 2019, thanks also to a BSBI Training Grant.

The courses Julie attended were focused on British and Irish plant families, were taught by Mark Spencer and were run by the Field Studies Council.

Over to Julie to tell us more about the course and what she learned: 

"The courses were a combination of classroom study with observations in Regent’s Park, including the allotment next to the classroom building.

"It was a fantastic four days, delving into plants: how they work and reproduce, how to identify them with a rigorous scientific approach (using a key), learning the appropriate terminology to do so, e.g. hispid – bristly, pustulate – bumps, terete - round, stipulate / ex-stipulate, pinnate / palmate, etc. and many more. 

"I gained knowledge of plant anatomy, for example the gynaecium, all the carpels (ovary and ovules inc stigma and style) and the androecium, all the stamens (filament and anther).

"I gained an understanding of flower reproduction, for example, protandry (boys before girls) and its role in preventing self-fertilization and protogyny (girls before boys).

"We learned something of the history of botany and, of course, Carl Linneaus was mentioned (more than once!). A type specimen embodies a species. Plants are ordered in Order, Family (-aceae suffix), Genus and Species. The Family names have changed and some genus / species moved from one family to another, therefore some plant names have synonyms.

"We learned about the history of plants in the UK, an archaeophyte is a non-native that has been in Britain for a long time, e.g. from the Romans. A native brought through natural processes before 1500 and a non-native brought by human activity since 1500.

"Examples of Asteraceae (formerly Compositae) we saw in Regent’s Park were hoary ragwort Jacobaea erucifolia, welted thistle Carduus crispus, hemp-agrimony Eupatorium cannabinum and common fleabane Pulicaria dysenterica (image above right).

"It’s great to contrast the modern Post Office Tower (I’m showing my age, that’s how I know it) with viewing wild plants in Regent’s Park.

"I think Mark Spencer, our tutor, found some Japanese knotweed in that hedge on the left (image above left). You never know what you’re going to find where, so it's essential to be observant.

"An example of an Apiaceae (formerly Umbelliferae) we saw was wild carrot Daucus carota (image on left) both on the first day and last day, showing its earlier and later stages. An example of a plant we saw in the Lamiaceae family was wall germander Teucrium chamaedrys (above right) which was a new one to me.

"One of the plant families, for example, the cabbage family (Brassicaceae formerly Cruciferae), is quite consistent with 4 sepals, 4 petals, 6 stamens, 2 carpels with ovaries fused but fruits vary from siliqua, longer and thinner and silicula, shorter and fatter. The suture line is visible in the fruit where 2 carpels have fused.

"I find it challenging identifying brassicas I see self-seeding in the urban environment but on the fourth day of the plant family courses I stumbled off the bus right into a very small plant I’d never seen before but on closer examination I saw it had those distinctive long fruits of a brassica we learned about on the first day. I was delighted to find thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana for the first time. 

"And later that day Mark was delighted to find a mushroom (on right) he could take home for dinner".

Many thanks to Julie for telling us about the course she attended and what she learned.

Don't forget that applications for Training Grants on 2020 will open here on 1st January, so choose your course (list of providers here) and be ready to apply! 

All set for the 2020 New Year Plant Hunt

Have you planned your route yet for the 2020 New Year Plant Hunt? It starts this Wednesday, New Year's Day, and runs until Saturday 4th January.

If you haven't yet decided on a route - and especially if this is your first time taking part in the Hunt (now in its ninth year) - why not check out the list of group Hunts and see what's happening in your area? 

Or just go out in your neighbourhood and see which wild or naturalised plants you can find in bloom. Many people take friends, family and pets along with them! 

The map on the right shows all the locations where Plant Hunters were out last New Year. If you live in one of the areas without a red pin, denoting no records submitted, then we'd be especially grateful if you could go out recording this year! For more detail, go to the map on the Results 2019 page and zoom in. 

Ciara checking hazel catkins to see
 if they count as "in flower"
Image: E. Goddard

As long as you follow these simple rules about how to take part, we'll be able to add your finds to the New Year Plant Hunt database. BSBI Head of Science, Kevin Walker, will once again be analysing this year's results to see what they tell us about how plants are responding to changes in autumn and winter weather patterns across Britain and Ireland. We're hoping to also run an analysis of the past five years of data to see if we can tease out any other patterns. 

And don't forget, nil records are important too. If you go out hunting and don't find anything in flower - maybe because you are in a northern or upland location - we'd still like to hear from you and your observations will feed into the analysis. Just email us at nyplanthunt@bsbi.org with a grid ref  of where you hunted.  

Three-cornered leek in flower in Co.
Wexford during the 2018 New Year Plant Hunt
Image: P. Green

Tom Humphrey, BSBI Database Officer, has been testing the New Year Plant Hunt recording app (this year's version available only via our website and not via any app stores) and members of the Support Team are all posed to help. We have a rota so if you contact us at any time over the four days, there will be somebody on hand to help you. 

This year's New Year Plant Hunt Support Team are all members of the BSBI Meetings & Communications Committee: Cathy, Ciara, Ellen, George, Jodey, Kylie, me (Louise) and Ryan. Top botanists Brian Laney and Ian Denholm have also kindly agreed to be on hand to deal with any tricky identifications which fox the rest of us.

So we'll look forward to receiving your records submitted via the recording app and seeing them appear on the interactive Results map. You can click on the #NewYearPlantHunt hashtag to see what people are talking about on social media and there will be daily blogposts like this one summarising what you are finding across Britain and Ireland. 

Here's to another fabulous Hunt!    

Christmas Message 2019 from BSBI President Lynne Farrell

Lynne at home in Arnside with a
copy of Grassland Plants of the
British & Irish lowlands
Image: L. Marsh

We’ve all had a busy year of botanical recording for Atlas 2020 so the festive season offers a chance to unwind and recharge our batteries. I’m going to enjoy browsing through my copy of BSBI’s latest publication, Grassland plants of the British & Irish lowlands – highly recommended. 

I’ll also be entering the final batch of records from VC103 Mid Ebudes (Mull, Coll and Tiree), where I’m County Recorder, before the deadline of end of December. If you have any plant records that you haven’t yet sent through to your County Recorder, you’ll have to get your skates on! And I’d like to say a big thank you to all of you for all your hard work notching up those plant records – thanks to all of you, there are now 43.6 million records in the BSBI Database.

Other plans for the coming days? I’m now based in Arnside, in the Lake District, so I’m involved with Back On Our Map (BOOM), a wildlife project for the Morecambe Bay area. They have plans to reinstate various species to the area, including seven rare plants. Read more about the project here.

Mistletoe on a tree near
Kimbolton, Hunts.
(Lynne's former hunting ground)
Image: L. Farrell

I’ll also be thinking about the wildlife in my garden: holly berries from the Christmas decorations, and some cooking apples that are past their best, will end up on my lawn so I can watch the blackbirds fighting over them! And I won’t be throwing the mistletoe away either - I’ll be trying to get it established on my apple tree by smearing the berries along a branch. If you want to have a go at this as well, do let me know how you get on. 

There’s an interesting paper in British & Irish Botany by John Box about mistletoe on oak and there are also papers in back copies of Watsonia, BSBI’s former scientific journal. All the papers are available online in the BSBI Publications Archive and there’s a handy index here prepared for us by Gwynn Ellis.

I’m looking forward to doing my New Year Plant Hunt probably in the Arnside allotments, as that is likely to be a good hunting ground, and I’ll be keeping an eye on the Results map to see which plants everyone else finds in bloom across Britain and Ireland. My predecessor as President, Chris Metherell, will be taking part in a challenge with one of our younger members to see which of them can notch up the most species on their patch in the north-west.

Ro Scott helping Lynne with her NPMS plot
on Coll in base-rich, tall herb fen
Image: L. Farrell

Next year’s plans include more visits to the Mid Ebudes where – as well as being County Recorder - I also record four monitoring plots on Mull, Coll and Tiree as part of the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS). I’m looking forward to telling you more about the Scheme next year – following on from last month’s interview for this News & Views blog, I’ve agreed to do another one about the NPMS. 

I’ll also be getting to grips with Twitter - my new account is here. And as BSBI President there will be many committee meetings to attend and emails to answer - I hope to hear from lots of you! But first let’s all enjoy a well-earned rest.

Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas, a very Happy New Year Plant Hunt and all the best for 2020.