BSBI membership: save money with our autumn special offer

For the last three years, we have launched our autumn membership special offer by saying that 'in a rapidly changing world, our wild plants have never been more in need of the support, understanding and appreciation that BSBI is uniquely placed to provide'. 

We'd love to be able to report that we've reached our strategic goal of 'a world where wild plants thrive and are valued and understood' but sadly, we are not there yet. Our Plant Atlas 2020 analyses and summary reports flagged how British and Irish wild flowers, and the many other species of wildlife who depend on them, are increasingly threatened. The evidence continues to build about how our climate is changing: thousands of you went out recording for the 2025 New Year Plant Hunt and found a total of 647 different species across Britain and Ireland managing to flower in deepest midwinter. It's wonderful to have those plant records - huge thanks to everyone who took part! - but the underlying message of plants and other wildlife going increasingly 'out of sync' as the world warms is deeply worrying. So, what can we do? 

Well, we can continue to build and support our friendly and  welcoming botanical community and keep on collecting the vital evidence about how our wild plant distributions are changing. Policy-makers rely on the robust data which are collected by BSBI's fabulous volunteer members and are then analysed and interpreted by our Science Team. That’s why today we are inviting you to join our growing ranks, if you haven't already, and asking our existing members to help us spread the word about the benefits of BSBI membership - for you and for our wonderful wild flowers. 

So, at a time when we are all counting the pennies, why join BSBI? And why now? There are three good reasons!

First of all, if you join BSBI in October, your annual membership starts at once so you could enjoy up to 15 months of membership benefits for the price of 12 months. You wouldn't need to renew your annual subscription until January 2027.

Secondly, we've continued to expand our range of membership benefits in the past year and there are even more in the pipeline:

• Members receive three issues each year of BSBI News, our colourful magazine packed with information about British and Irish wild flowers: visit our sampler page to check out the latest sample issue, and take a look at some of the free articles from recent issues – that will give you an idea of the contents.
• Last year we opened up membership access to the BSBI Distribution Database – with more than 60 million plant records, it’s one of the largest databases of biological records in the world. 
• Earlier this year we launched our new BSBI Recording App so it has never been easier to upload your plant records direct from your phone or computer to the BSBI Distribution Database, ready for verification by our experts. 
• Membership gives you favoured status when applying for BSBI training and plant study grants - if you're thinking of doing a plant ID course, such as BSBI's online Identiplant course or one of the many courses offered by external providers, you can apply for a grant of up to £250 to help you. These grants are also available to non-members but members are prioritised in the award process.
• Membership brings you big discounts on the series of BSBI Handbooks; pre-publication offers for members are usually around a third off. We have published two new Handbooks this year - Brambles of Scotland (£7 membership discount) and Wild Roses of Great Britain and Ireland (£9 membership discount) - and there are more titles in the pipeline.
• Members have exclusive access to almost 100 expert plant referees to help you with identification, to members-only volunteering opportunities and to 100+ scientific papers free to download from the password-protected members' area of our website.
• Membership also brings you big discounts on selected botany books, such as Urban Plants by Trevor Dines (£10 off) and Endemic by James Harding-Morris (£5 off) as well as other ad hoc offers and discounts from our partners.
• Coming soon: we've been working away behind the scenes to create a brand new BSBI website! Our over-riding aim has been to make all our current content even easier for you to access, with pointers and filters depending on your area of interest, your skill level or your accessibility needs. The new website goes live this autumn and we'll be consulting with members to keep improving it and adding even more content. 

Concerned about the environmental impact of your membership? By opting for digital membership and choosing eBooks rather than printed Handbooks, you'll be minimising your carbon footprint.

Wondering if your voice will be heard and your questions answered? Our latest membership survey went live last month and already, more than 1,200 of you have provided feedback about what you like and what we can improve. We're busy analysing that feedback now and will be reporting back to you in the Winter issue of BSBI News. We're also looking ahead to the 2026 online Forum where staff, trustees and membership representatives come together to brainstorm what we offer, how we work together and how we can continue to improve.  

But there's a third, very important, reason for joining the growing ranks of BSBI members - it's not just about all the many practical, social and financial benefits you'll enjoy. You'll also be helping us to support British and Irish wildflowers. 

How? Because while many of our >4,600 members carry out amazing work studying, recording, monitoring and helping to conserve wild plants across Britain and Ireland, feeding into projects such as Plant Atlas 2020, the State of Nature 2023 report, the many county Floras and the National Plant Monitoring Scheme in which BSBI is a partner, many others are simply happy to know that their subscription helps support our work to advance the understanding and appreciation of wild plants and to support their conservation across Britain and Ireland.

Check out our nature conservation policy and our strategic plan to find out more; discover how our botanical heatmaps, developed with Natural England, are helping to ensure that we get the right tree in the right place (and not in the wrong place!); check out the members who won awards in 2024 for outstanding contributions to botany; or leaf through our latest Annual Review to find out what the Society achieved last year thanks to all our wonderful members.

Want to know more about exactly how we spend the subscriptions we receive from members and the funding from external bodies? Our Annual Report and Accounts are always published on this page, while our Ethical Position Statement and our Reserves Policy can be viewed on our Governance page. Want to check that we will always respect your privacy and handle your data with the utmost care? Check out our Privacy Policy and Data Handling Policy.

If you are already a BSBI member, we'd like to say a huge thank you to each and every one of you for all that you do, and ask you to spread the word to friends and colleagues who you think might enjoy becoming a member - and don't forget that a gift membership of BSBI makes a great present for a loved one!

Our ranks are growing - by almost 30% in the last three years - so if you haven't yet joined us, why not head over here and become our next new member? We can't wait to welcome you and send you your membership welcome pack. Together we can keep working towards a world where wild plants across Britain and Ireland thrive and are valued - and so are the thousands of amazing BSBI botanists who support them.