British & Irish Botany: issue 3.2 published

Betula pubescens var. fragrans
Image: A. Amphlett

The latest issue of British & Irish Botany, BSBI's online Open Access scientific journal, has just been published - you can read it here and it's our biggest issue ever! This issue is coming to you a little later than planned but the upside is that we have 12 papers for you to enjoy.

The issue opens with a detailed account by County Recorder Andy Amphlett of the identification and taxonomy of birches Betula spp. in Britain and Ireland. One of the many advantages of publishing online is that we are not restricted by page numbers and we believe that this detailed and amply-illustrated paper will be of great value in resolving some of the obstacles to confident birch identification.

Dune Gentian
Image: T. Rich

Chris Preston looks at the history of Slender Speedwell Veronica filiformis in Britain and Ireland since the C19th, David Welch describes a new microspecies of bramble Rubus longiflorus from northeast Scotland and Julian Shaw from the Royal Horticultural Society investigates Dutch Iris Iris x hollandica. 

Two subspecies in the Gentian family that are endemic to Britain - Dune Gentian Gentianella amarella subsp. occidentalis and English Centaury Centaurium tenuiflorum subsp. anglicum - are the subject of papers exploring their distribution, ecology and conservation status. Tim Rich continues his series of updates on the distribution and status of rare hawkweeds including one, Hieracium fulvocaesium, whose global occurrence in 2017 was restricted to just three individual plants on a single rock in the extreme north of Scotland!

Orchidophile and former BSBI Treasurer Terry Swainbank reports on a long-term study of the dynamics of Narrow-lipped and Broad-leaved Helleborines, and on the use of morphometrics to distinguish the putative hybrid between these species. 

Epipactis x stephensonii, the
putative orchid hybrid
Image: T. Swainbank

Michael Braithwaite and Luke Gaskell investigate the composition of arable weed communities of the Scottish Borders, and Phil Smith presents data amassed over 15 years on habitat, floristic and vegetation change on pioneer sand-dune and dune-slack systems on the Sefton Coast.

So a bumper issue, and don't forget that we welcome submissions from keen botanists with work of relevance to the British & Irish flora. You don't need to be a BSBI member, or an expert or a professional botanist. You don't need to have published a scientific paper before, in fact we are very keen to offer a platform to early career botanists, helping them with copy-editing and guiding them through the process from submission to publication. 

Head over to the British & Irish Botany website to read the latest issue, browse the archives and use the search facility to check out the subjects and species we've covered in the last few years; then take a look at the Submissions page and consider sending us a manuscript!

You can also contact Editor-in-Chief Ian Denholm at bib@bsbi.org if you'd like to discuss an idea for a submission.