Botanical snippets for April II

There is so much happening in botany right now, so here is another compendium of snippets:

Sparganium erectum
Image: C. Ferguson-Smyth

A Herbal History seminar at Kew in June: click here for details and booking form. You may also be interested to see this short video, which goes behind the scenes at RBG Kew and explains the importance of the work they carry out. There is also this recent piece in the Guardian which talks about the ongoing petition against cuts at Kew, which as of today has over 14,000 signatures. The petition page has a nice bit of video showing David Attenborough at Kew. 

A one-day meeting in Oxford in July to celebrate the 350th anniversary of botanist John Goodyer.

Find out what BSBI Science Officer Pete Stroh has been working on in Cambridgeshire: reintroducing Bromus interruptus.

An update on Ash Dieback from BBSRC and you can find out here about the FRAXINUS game.

A digital sampler here of Gabriel Hemery's update of John Evelyn's Sylva, also featured here on the BBC website and there is an interview with Gabriel on Radio 4's 'Farming Today' still available here on iPlayer.

Tolypella glomerata
Image: C. F. Carter

A reminder that if you live in Scotland, you are spoilt rotten for plant ID courses this year! There's a full programme of mainly botanical delights at FSC Kindrogan and I hear that there are a few places left on at least one of the BSBI/Plantlife courses on Identifying Wild Flower Families being held in Glasgow, St. Andrews and Edinburgh this spring. 

Booking details on the flyer and the BSBI Scotland webpage, where you can also book to attend the BSBI Summer Meeting, if you haven't already. Don't leave it too late or you won't get a place on your first choice of fieldtrip!

Even though there is no longer a Botany degree course in Britain, there is one in Ireland. The NUI Galway website has details on its Botany and Plant Science page of a 4-year course leading to a BSc (Hons) degree in Botany. 

Some lovely B&W images of flowers here from Cy de Cosse Photography. Just because they are pretty! And this page also shows the third and fourth images which will feature on the cover of New Journal of Botany volume 4: one from Claudia Ferguson-Smyth and one from Chris Carter.