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 & Curator
Matthew Jebb 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 he 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, - well done on getting Minister Noonan to do the launch.

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 (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 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".

Help your local herbarium!

Volunteers mounting specimens at Univ Leicester
Image: L. Marsh

Regular readers of this blog will know that we have a passion for herbaria. If you don't know much about these collections of dried, pressed plants or why they are so useful, check out our Herbaria page where you'll find resources, videos and contact details to help you find - and maybe visit? - your local herbarium. They are incredibly important for all plant-lovers, whether you're carrying out research, interested in the history of plant collecting, or you're trying to improve your botanical skills and really want to get to grips with what a particular species looks like across the year and in all kinds of conditions. 

Ranee putting away specimens
 in the NHM Herbarium
Image courtesy of S. Knapp 

So when Sandy Knapp, Chair of BSBI's Board of Trustees and botanist at the Natural History Museum, London, got in touch with important information about how we can help our herbaria, we were keen to help spread the word!

Over to Sandy to tell us more:

"As botanists we all love to see plants in the field, there is nothing like it. But herbaria are essential resources for verification of occurrences, especially when taxonomic opinions change. David Pearman showed how important herbaria are for finding first records of alien species in our area and emphasised the key role small, local herbaria play in understanding our flora.

Herbaria of the world are recorded in the online resource Index Herbariorum maintained by the New York Botanical Garden. Here you can look up herbaria by country or acronym (all registered herbaria have a standard acronym – for example mine at the Natural History Museum is BM (from when we were the British Museum!) and Trinity College herbarium is TCD and so on). There has been increasing interest in digitising and providing online images of herbarium specimens – for example, Kew has embarked on a programme to digitally image the entire herbarium.

Digitising herbarium specimens
Image courtesy of S. Knapp

But it is not only the big collections that are important for understanding our British and Irish flora! Right now, in the UK we have a great opportunity, especially for small institutions. Sadly, Ireland is not a part of this local initiative, but future initiatives await (and there is a Europe-wide DiSSCo consortium from which the UK node sprang).

DiSSCo UK (Distributed System of Scientific Collections UK) is a national programme to digitally record  the UK’s natural history collections – herbaria included. DiSSCo UK seeks to become a one-stop, dynamic, openly available and easy-to-use e-science infrastructure, integrating digital access to UK natural science collections. Through a hub and spoke model of digitisation at national, regional and local levels DiSSCo will:

• Empower the UK network of collections through digitisation
• Enhance UK biodiversity and heritage information infrastructure
• Improve data quality
• Deliver relevant data

Folders full of herbarium specimens
Image courtesy of S. Knapp

The 10-year programme has been allocated funding from the UK government, and herbaria are among the first collections to be digitised – so the fun and benefit from having access to digital records of herbarium specimens will soon begin!

An Expression of Interest (EOI) for DiSSCo UK has been launched for organisations interested in participating in future DiSSCo UK digitisation funding calls and wider activities over the 10-year programme. We’d encourage all organisations with an interest in DiSSCo UK to participate, and the EOI will aid in connecting organisations with potential hubs to collaborate on funding calls

Prof Clive Stace in the Univ Leicester Herbarium
Image: L. Marsh

The EOI is a light touch process that should not require special preparation or research – completion time will depend on which questions are relevant to the submitting organisation but is estimated at 20-40 minutes. Submissions are via Citizen Space, an online survey platform. The survey can be found here. The closing date for submissions is Friday 21st March.

If you have any questions, please direct them to dissco-uk@nhm.ac.uk. If you encounter any difficulty using Citizen Space, please direct your query to infrastructure@ahrc.ukri.org. Our BSBI President, Paul Ashton, has registered his local herbarium’s interest – I encourage all BSBI members to contact their local collections and urge them to do the same!"

Many thanks to Sandy for sharing this important news. We'll be following developments as they unfold, so watch this space, and Sandy will be keeping BSBI members in the loop with a longer piece about DiSSCo and its role in helping herbaria in the autumn issue of BSBI News, our membership magazine. Let's get involved and show some love to our wonderful herbaria!

British & Irish Botany: issue 7.1 published

Open limestone pavement  at Ingleborough,
Yorkshire, showing the clint and grike structure
 Image: C.Stevens

We've just published the latest issue of British & Irish Botany, the Botanical Society's online Open Access scientific journal. This issue contains six papers which we think will be of interest to botanists across Britain and Ireland.

First up is a paper by Carly Stevens called 'More evidence gaps than grikes: how limestone pavements have fallen through the cracks of British conservation' in which the author considers the various factors which may have contributed to the poor condition of British limestone pavements. This paper will be essential reading for anyone involved in the conservation of this internationally important habitat, which can support such a rich array of wild flowers.

Charlotte Grace O’Brien in 1894.
Image: Anthony O'Brien

From Ireland, Sylvia Reynolds (until recently, BSBI County Recorder for Co. Limerick) offers a fascinating account of the botanical interests and the many and various achievements of her great-grandaunt Charlotte Grace O'Brien. It's always a delight to read about eminent C19th female botanists, who managed to achieve great things - often in the face of adversity - and Sylvia's engaging writing style makes this a particularly enjoyable read.

Our third paper sees Tim Rich and Libby Houston, two of the authors of the BSBI Handbook on Whitebeams, Rowans and Service Trees of Britain and Ireland, make a number of new combinations in Sorbus, in preparation for the highly anticipated second edition. The first edition is currently out of print, although it is available as an eBook (as are all our BSBI Handbooks and a selection of other titles too).

Next up, a paper by the aptly named Caroline Plant et al. considers new records of New Zealand Pigmyweed Crassula helmsii in two Irish lakes; these records indicate a continued spread from east to west on the island of Ireland, since the first records of this invasive non-native plant in 1984.

Oxalis corniculata depicted by L’Obel (1576)
Image courtesy of the Linnean Society

From Chris Preston and David Pearman - two very well-known names in botanical circles, and frequent contributors to British & Irish Botany - we have an account of the first British record of Procumbent Yellow-Sorrel Oxalis corniculata in the late C15th. This plant has gone on to attain worldwide distribution, and Preston & Pearman tell the story of the British botanists who first described it in Britain and observed the explosive method of seed dispersal which helped it proliferate.

Finally, we have an account from Tim Rich of a new Lake District endemic, Lesser-leaved hawkweed Hieracium subangustatum, which was formerly treated as the Norwegian H. angustatum. This latest paper by Tim, author of many such contributions to this journal and several BSBI Handbooks, adds to the already considerable BSBI resources on hawkweeds. 

We hope you enjoy reading this latest issue of British & Irish Botany and as always, if you have an idea for a submission, do feel free to get in touch with us to talk through your idea. If it's about the vascular plants of Britain and Ireland, we'll be keen to hear from you. 

New Year Plant Hunt 2025: Day Four

Early Dog-violet spotted by
BSBI trustee Dr Trevor Dines
on his Hunt in North Wales 

The sun has set on the fourth and final day of BSBI's fourteenth New Year Plant Hunt so it's time to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part and to take a bit of an overview of how things have gone so far. 

The Hunt has been hugely popular, from the very first record which pinged in just after midnight on Sunday, to Olly Lynch Milner's Hunt by torch light tonight - he didn't think he'd have time to do a Hunt but in the end he just couldn't resist...

The Results website shows that more than 20,000 records have been submitted so far from 1,666 surveys, with the total number of different species recorded so far standing at 610. Of course not all the results are in yet - people have until midnight on Sunday 5th January to send us any outstanding records. 

This was the first year when people have been able to submit their records using the BSBI recording app which we launched to BSBI members last summer after several years of consultation and development. All the New Year Plant Hunt records went, via the app, into a separate "fenced-off" part of the BSBI Distribution Database - it's one of the largest such databases in the world, currently holding more than 56 million plant records, many of which fed into Plant Atlas 2020. Most people found the app easy to use, while the feedback we received from people who weren't so keen has helped us to make a few small tweaks.

Young plant-hunter Theo was
chuffed to find his first daisy of the year!
Image M. Harding

Another new thing this year was that we have expanded onto a some new social media platforms which allowed us to reach more audiences - and more diverse audiences -  than ever before. There were New Year Plant Hunt videos on TikTok and posts on Bluesky, augmenting our more established presence on Instagram, Twitter, Threads and Facebook. 

New Year Plant Hunt founders Tim Rich and Sarah Whild, who did the very first Plant Hunt back in 2012, have been very active on our New Year Plant Hunt (private) Facebook group which the fabulous Moira (aka Nature Lark) set up and administers for us. They sent these messages to all this year's hunters: 

Sarah: "BSBI is hugely grateful to all of you energetic flower spotters for giving up valuable mince-pie munching time to count flowering plants in every corner of Britain and Ireland. Thanks for turning our mad dash round Cardiff in 2012 into an annual significant record collecting event, recruiting fresh new botanical faces AND making a contribution to our understanding of climate change impact on flowering plants".

Tim & his team with Corsican Hellebore,
found on their Hunt in Pagham
Image: T. Rich

Tim: "The number of botanists out recording over New Year never ceases to amaze me, thank you. They braved the cold, the rain and the wind! And so did the flowers". 

Huge thanks to both of them for starting something so amazing! 

The Hunt is both a fun, joyous experience - being out in nature and looking for flowers - and a sobering one. Chris Gibson, whose superb photographs appear on the Plant Atlas website, voiced what many of us were thinking when he blogged about his list, the longest he had recorded in five years of the Hunt, saying "one should fall short of celebrating - many of these plants should not be flowering now, and are only doing so because of the harm we have inflicted upon our climate..." 

Sarah Watts, Chair of the
Mountain Woodland Action Group,
was chuffed to find Bell Heather blooming
up Glen Quoich in Deeside
 

Wendy Tagg, who has also been taking part in the Hunt for several years and has now joined the BSBI, used her blog to note that "For some species that I usually expect to find easily, I had to search really hard to find one or two blooms" - an experience that many others shared. 

A third Plant Hunter used her 'Inside the petri dish' blog to report on her "relish" at taking part and how "hugely useful" she found our spotter sheet. She also called the BSBI "awesome" but we couldn't possibly comment ;-)

As the Hunt has grown, so has the Support Team! This year there were 21 of us working shifts across the four days: identifying tricky plants, promoting the Hunt across all our social media platforms, helping people with data entry and answering questions from hunters. One question that kept coming up was, does this plant count as wild, or naturalised, or is it planted and therefore can't be included on a Plant Hunt list? This can be a grey area so it was very helpful to be able to point people to our Definitions page. 

Joni Cook, Secretary of 
BSBI Events & Comms Committee,
 has done superb work on the Support Team!
Great that she managed to nip out
and do a quick Hunt  in NW Leics today -
14 species inc the above 

Lots of people said that the Hunt is a "lovely way to start the New Year" and they expressed a desire to see, and learn more about, our wonderful wildflowers over the coming months. 

We're reminding everyone about our plant ID resources (many of which are absolutely free) and the short training courses on offer both from BSBI and from external providers - although these are not free, anyone can apply for a BSBI training grant of up to £250 to help cover the costs. Application forms are here and the deadline to apply is end of January. 

Once we've received everyone's Plant Hunt records - and a reminder that the deadline is midnight this Sunday, 5th January - we'll analyse the results and report back here. 

Until then, we'd just like to say a huge thank you again to all of you for taking part and helping the BSBI build up and deepen our knowledge of how wild and naturalised plants across Britain and Ireland are responding to a rapidly changing climate, with all the knock-on effects that may have for the many species of wildlife that depend on our plants. Collecting robust evidence and understanding what's going on is essential for us as we work with other organisations to do something about it.

New Year Plant Hunt 2025: Day Three

Day Three of this year's New Year Plant Hunt and with the Met Office forecasting heavy rain and strong winds on the way, the race was on to get out and hunt for wild or naturalised plants in bloom across Britain and Ireland. By the end of the day, the Results website was showing more than 15,000 records from 1,195 separate Hunts, and 546 different species recorded so far. Matt Harding, BSBI Scotland Officer, led a Hunt in Stirling and has sent a short report and some tips for Plant Hunters, but first I'd like to feature a couple of inspirational young botanists who are causing quite a stir.

One of our favourite photos from last year's New Year Plant Hunt was of Michael Jones' daughter Ezri, then aged just eight months old, examining one of our newly-launched spotter sheets. We're delighted to report that a year on, Ezri is still enjoying her botany (particularly white and purple flowers) and has graduated to the more targeted 'England's Top 20' spotter sheet (image above right). As proud dad Michael says, the New Year Plant Hunt is a "fab family thing to do".

Our other botanical Hunt Heroine is Ada, who James told you about in last night's blogpost. She was out plant hunting again today with proud dad Dan Ryan and her fashion sense is causing as much of a stir as her botanical expertise. 

Whether she's examining Three-Cornered Leek (image on left), checking out a patch of sweet-smelling Winter Heliotrope or zooming in on a Daisy, with her fabulous 'winged unicorn' coat, teamed with colourful leggings and a selection of bobble hats, Ada's status as a style icon is now firmly established and we are all upping our game to try to be more like Ada. 

But the New Year Plant Hunt isn't just about inspirational young female botanists - it's also about the dogs and horses who join us on our Hunts and oh yes, it's also about the plants - I haven't forgotten them! 

In Ireland, Oisin and Mairead reported "slim pickings" on their Hunt up in Donegal but down in Cork City, where it's considerably warmer, Finbarr notched up 46 species, including Common Whitlow-grass and Greater Burnet-Saxifrage. 

Botanists in Cornwall, with the 'seaside version'
of Wild Carrot in the foreground
Image: Dave Steere

Lizzie found 29 species in bloom in Ammanford, West Wales; in South Wales, Peter spotted Lesser Celandine in bloom and in mid-Wales, Hilary did her first ever Hunt and decreed it "a great end to a good year". 

Notable finds in England today included Sea Campion and Rock Samphire in Cornwall; Hemlock in Kent; Annual Bugloss near London; Sweet Violets and Snapdragons in Cambridge; Annual Knawel in Bedfordshire and Small Nettle in Whitby 

Further north the weather was less kind to plant hunters - it was "blowing a hoolie" in the Borders - but let's go over to BSBI Scotland Officer Matt Harding for his update:

Rosy Cress in Stirling today
Image: Matt Harding

"Seven hardy souls braved the biblical forecast, and after a grotty first hour were rewarded with blue skies, flowers galore and a wind that nearly blew us off the top of the Stirling volcanic plug.

We managed to search out a whopping 45 species in flower, beating our 2024 total by three species! This total might be the work of a moment as you potter along the Dorset coastline, but in Scotland is quite a result. Last year the average Plant Hunt list in Scotland was six species long…

Compared to last year, we missed several larger-leaved species that the recent frosts had knocked back, e.g. Hawkweeds, Prickly Sow-thistle, Red Valerian and Scentless Mayweed. However, these were more than compensated for by new finds such as Henbit Dead-nettle, a locally scarce species, Canadian Fleabane, a recent colonist, Sticky Groundsel and Barren Strawberry.

Matt's Top Tips for Plant Hunting in Scotland (and beyond?):

• Head for the towns and cities: The urban heat island effect is incredibly helpful for prolonging flowering times. It’s all very well walking through beautiful countryside with glorious mountain views, but chances are you’ll just have Gorse to show for your efforts.
• Go for grotty spots: The most productive areas are often sheltered corners of wasteland, lurking behind walls, along road verges etc. If it is the kind of spot that will have Annual Meadow-grass, Petty Spurge, Groundsel, Thale Cress and Smooth Sow-thistle), then there is a pretty good chance that some or all of them will still be in flower, mixed in with the abandoned bottles of Buckfast. Don’t forget to check the walls as well – species such as Yellow Corydalis and Wood Meadow-grass can be spotted, as well as more familiar species like Ivy-leaved Toadflax.
• Do some prep: Build in some poking around time during your Christmas shopping, to reccie likely spots. This year a little preparation in the run-up to Christmas allowed us to focus on more productive wasteland corners and car park margins, and avoid previously rewarding spots that had been stripped of flowers by the recent frosts. I also spotted Rosy Cress in bud in early December on King’s Park walls on the edge of Stirling, and a quick visit on New Year’s Eve revealed one plant in rather glorious flower for the Plant Hunt.
• Think about aspect and potential sun traps: In Stirling, the Back Walk consists of a rising path below basalt cliffs facing south-west, sheltered by woodland on one side and the old town walls on the other, creating optimum conditions for late flowerers. This is always a productive area for our Plant Hunts, with highlights including Hare’s-foot Clover, Holly and Ivy, otherwise in bud, are good bets for flowering along this section
• Get a group going: The more pairs of eyes, the more you will spot.
• Above all, look closely: It’s surprising how many flowers have visible stamens when you double-check with a hand lens".

Thanks Matt! So, if you're going out plant hunting tomorrow for our fourth and final day of this year's New Year Plant Hunt, do follow Matt's tips, do check the weather forecast (and the Group Hunts listing if you were planning to join a group Hunt, just in case it had to be cancelled due to bad weather) and finally, do use the BSBI recording app to upload your records. 

Good luck, Happy New Year and we hope to see you back here tomorrow night for our final round-up.