A botanical tale of two cities

Marsh Thistle Cirsium palustre in Hove
Image: P. O'Brien

The second of the prizes awarded to one of our New Year Plant Hunters is the Phil Collins Tribute Award for recording plants on two landmasses. Phil gathered a lot of media attention back in the day, following his famous flight on Concorde to perform at the Live Aid concert in the UK and the USA. 

Botanist Phoebe O'Brien didn't find any photographers waiting for her when she flew back to Galway after botanising in Hove, so she will have to settle for the acclaim of News & Views and one of my Plant Hunt prizes: the chance to air her 3 botanical wishes on these pages. 

But first - which plants did she find and how did her list of species flowering in Galway differ from those blooming in Hove?       

Most spp. recorded in the Plant Hunt
were in the Asteraceae family.
Image: P. O'Brien

Phoebe said "I’m quite embarrassed that I somehow managed to pick two incredibly sunny days in two beautiful cities for my New Year Plant Hunt, while other recorders seemed to have battled gales and climbed mountains in the name of Botany.

"My first location was in Brighton and Hove, where I was visiting family for New Year. Naturally none of them fancied a bit of a stroll on the 2nd January, they know my ways by now!

"I started searching for flowering plants along the pavements and seafront of Hove, then worked my way towards Brighton, looping via St Anne’s Wells Garden with only planted Tricornered Leek Allium triquetrum in flower and back to central Hove. I was hoping the habitats would be somewhat comparable to Galway.

Campanula poscharskyana flowering in Hove
Image: P. O'Brien

"Two days later I headed out in Galway City walking from Hidden Valley, through Wood Quay, across the river Corrib to the University campus, then walking down the canal to Nimo’s Pier, turning up through the Claddagh and back through the centre of town.

"The first wild flower I came across in Hove was Trailing Bellflower Campanula poscharskyana. Bellflowers are very common along the pavements and walls of both Hove and Galway and can be quite a challenge to identify, but the one I found in flower in Galway proved on closer examination to be C. portenschlagiana. 

Campanula portenschlagiana in Galway
Image: P. O'Brien

This was swiftly followed by Annual Mercury Mercurialis annua, something I would not expect to see in Ireland at all. I have a secret passion for the Euphorbiaceae and was not surprised to find plenty of Petty Spurge Euphorbia peplus flowering in both cities.

"Other plants flowering in both towns were Senecio vulgaris, Arrhenatherum elatius, Bellis perennis, Capsella bursa-pastoris, Cymbalaria muralis, Dactylis glomerata, Petasites fragrans, Poa annua, Sonchus oleraceus, Stellaria media, Taraxacum officinale. Basically all the usual suspects!

"In Hove the Parietaria judaica was flowering while in Galway it wasn’t. Hove also had one of my favourite plants in flower Pseudofumaria lutea, a species unknown in the West of Ireland. Polygonum arenastrum, Cirsium palustre, Ranunculus repens, Senecio jacobaea and one rather bedraggled Hordeum murinum brought my total for Hove to 20.

Petasites fragrans flowering in Galway City
Image: P. O'Brien

"In Galway there were 22 plants in flower, with no surprises in the additional species to the ones mentioned already: Agrostis stolonifera, Cardamine flexuosa, Lamium purpureum, Lapsana communis, Veronica persica and an escaped Calendula officinalis. I noticed in one garden that Nasturtiums were happily flowering, which I suppose shows how little frost there has been here this winter.

"In both locations I checked shingle communities and found that only in Galway were Raphanus raphanistrum subsp. maritimus and Tripleurospermum maritimum bravely in flower. 

"One thing that pleased me in a way only botanists might understand was finding a few Sea Beet plants growing outside a garage on Farm Road in Hove, two roads back from the beach and quite isolated from other coastal plants".

Thanks Phoebe and congratulations on winning the Phil Collins Tribute Award - your 3 Botanical Wishes for 2015 will be in the next post.

New Year Plant Hunt: taking the next steps?

Plant Hunt co-founder Dr Tim Rich & Smooth Hawksbeard
flowering in Cardiff last week.
Image: C. Gait

Today's Telegraph has a list of 13 Reasons to be Cheerful and top of the list is this note on the 368 species we recorded in flower during the New Year Plant Hunt. 

Another nice mention for BSBI in the national press!

The New Year Plant Hunt has certainly put BSBI and botany in the spotlight, and we are hoping that some of the people who took part this year for the first time will join us on a BSBI field meeting this year and will check the interactive map here to see what's going on in their local patch.

Trialling survey methods for NPMS.
Kevin Walker (BSBI Head of Science) on right.
Pete Stroh (BSBI Scientific Officer) in red.
Image: M. Pocock 

We also hope that people will consider signing up for the new National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS). Due to launch in March, this is a ground-breaking new partnership between BSBI, the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, JNCC and Plantlife. 

Plantlife have set up this interim page so you can register now and find out more while we are setting up the new website for you. 

I asked Oli Pescott, one of this year's Plant Hunters who also works as a botanist at CEH and has been involved in setting up this new scheme, to tell us more. Oli gave a presentation about the NPMS at the BSBI Annual Exhibition Meeting in November and you can download his presentation from this page.

Oli said "The National Plant Monitoring Scheme is really gearing up for launch now, and I’m told by our colleagues at Plantlife that over 700 people have already registered! I think the NPMS will be a great scheme for those who have already got their feet wet (possibly literally?) recording plants on the New Year Plant Hunt. 

Volunteers test-run the various methods
Image: M. Pocock

"The results of my Plant Hunt this New Year were on the low side (17 plants flowering), but even from that small number obvious patterns emerged on my patch, with garden escapes like Yellow Corydalis, Greater Periwinkle and Sweet Alison flowering in walls, alleys and pavements in my village, and very little with flowers in the surrounding fields. A suggestive illustration of the combined effects of non-native plants or varieties and warm urban microclimates  across the landscape. 


"We hope that participation in the NPMS creates a similar opportunity for people to monitor a local patch thoroughly. The idea is that you survey around 5 plots in a 1x1 km square (randomly assigned by the scheme). 

"Your records will allow scientists to get an overall picture of what is happening to plants at the habitat scale across the UK. 

Oli in blue; Felicity from Plantlife in stripes;
Bob Ellis (BSBI Projects Officer) pointing
Image: M. Pocock 

"The random element is important to ensure that the results are not heavily biased by surveyors visiting their favourite spots, and is similar to the strategy used by the Wider Countryside Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. This means that it’s important to get in quick to secure a 1x1 km square to survey near you!” 

It certainly is! Oli and I have both registered for our squares and the four partner organisations are working really hard to get everything ready for the launch in March. 

We are also making sure that you will have all the help and support you need to go out recording wild plants, even if you are an absolute beginner at botany! 

It's Snowdrop Time! Have you got your Crawley?

Snowdrops in bloom at Welford, Berks.
Image courtesy M. Crawley

Reports are coming in of Snowdrops beginning to flower. 

We received quite a few Snowdrop records and photographs during the New Year Plant Hunt, but only those populations which were naturalised - rather than planted - met the criteria for inclusion on the list of 368 wild or naturalised species in flower at New Year.

That doesn't mean we can't enjoy spotting these beautiful flowers, but they can be tricky to identify to species, and as for all those garden cultivars...

Mick Crawley (centre), Lynne Farrell (VC Recorder for Mull)
& author Peter Marren at Pearman Celebration Day, Kew
Image: BSBI Publicity Team 2014 

Fortunately help is at hand: botanists heading out into the field this month will be packing up their "Poland" and their "Stace" but they will also be saying "Where's my Crawley?"

They are talking about this excellent ID Guide to Snowdrops, free to download here and from the BSBI website. The man himself is probably leaping out of a helicopter like Milk Tray Man or being all professorial over here! But on left is a rare glimpse of him at Kew in September, when he came to our celebrations in tribute to David Pearman. 

New Journal of Botany: Orchids and Hawkweeds

I hope that BSBI members have all received their print copy of the December issue of New Journal of Botany. It was published on-line last month as usual, but the holidays delayed the big mail-out of print copies - we are sorry that it may not have reached you in time for New Year's Day. 

If you are not a BSBI member, this review of the lead paper in the current issue of New Journal of Botany may give you a taste of what you are missing. It is written by Ryan Clark who (as you may have already heard once or twice!) co-ordinated the New Year Plant Hunt. 

We also published a paper by Plant-Hunt co-founder Dr Tim Rich about his new Hawkweed - this one is named for Sir David Attenborough.  

And here's a last glimpse of the New Journal of Botany cover for 2014. Claudia Ferguson-Smyth is curating the new cover for 2015 as we speak - I can't wait to see what she comes up with! I'll be taking the results to Publications Committee next month, so will try and give you a sneak preview then - if Claudia will let me ;-)

New Year Plant Hunt: the first of the prizes!

Red Dead-nettle, Wilts. 2/1/2015
Image: T. Havenith

Two of the nicest aspects of the BSBI New Year Plant Hunt: hearing from families who went out together to see what was in bloom, and hearing from people who went out last year as well as this. 

In 2014, Tim and his fiancee Lucy found 6 species in bloom near their home in Melksham, Wiltshire: Red Dead-nettle, Petty Spurge, Groundsel, Daisy, Dandelion and Field Madder.

In 2015, Tim, his wife Lucy and Meeple, their baby bump, walked the same route and found the first 5 species but sadly no Field Madder, although they had Wavy Bittercress this year. Meeple is due to arrive in late April, when there should be lots of flowers in bloom to welcome him. And we hope that he, Tim and Lucy will join us on many New Year Plant Hunts in years to come. 

Field madder in Wiltshire, Plant Hunt 2014
Image: T. Havenith

He may have a new name by then: Meeple is perhaps what botanists would call a putative designation, inspired by Tim and Lucy's love of board games!

So, the prize for New Year Plant Hunt Family Values goes to Tim, Lucy and Meeple. 

And they win... a chance to share their botanical wishes for 2015 on this page, in the hope that any passing genies will oblige - or at the very least, that some of you will click through on a few links please! 

Tim said "Here are our Botanical wishes for 2015:

1. I would like to see the Living Churchyard Project continue to flourish - this involves volunteers in managing churchyards for the benefit of wildlife. The project I’m involved with has a blog, which can be viewed here, and Caring for God's Acre, the charity providing support for the project, can be found here.

2. I would like to see more publicity for Gardening with M.E., a meme set up by Gwenfar’s Garden about managing to continue gardening while suffering from M.E (also known as CFS and Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome). I will be blogging about this topic over the coming year and my posts can be seen over at my Notes of Nature blog here.

3. One thing I would like from BSBI please is an ID guide to Hedera helix and cultivars".

That's a very modest third wish, but I managed to worm out of Tim what he really, really wants! 

Daisy, Dandelion & Wavy Bittercress
Wiltshire 2/1/2015
All images: T. Havenith

"Ok, I noticed that last year some charities like BugLife had a short period where membership was around half price. I wondered if the BSBI ever do something similar?"

We don't Tim, but I'll try and catch our Trustees in wish-granting mode and mention it to them! 

Many thanks to you, Lucy and Meeple for taking part in the Plant Hunt again, and for sharing your botanical wishes for 2015 - I hope they all come true for you! 

Our next New Year Plant Hunt prize is the Phil Collins Tribute Award - the lucky winner will be telling us about her Hunt(s) on two landmasses and also sharing her botanical wishes for 2015 - watch this space!

New Year Plant Hunt: evidence of climate change?

Feverfew, VC59, 3/1/2015
Image: P. Gately

Regular readers of these pages may be getting a bit Plant Hunted out at this point and I promise you, normal botanical service will soon be resumed, but for now, the world and his wife are asking about what we found on our New Year Plant Hunt. 

Yesterday saw Tim on BBC Radio Wales and me on BBC Radio Kent (both start ~90 minutes in), while Co-ordinator Ryan and local recorder Oisin were on BBC Radio Foyle (starts at 1 hr 45 mins) this afternoon. 

They've all asked us to remind them about the Plant Hunt next year so their listeners can take part.

White Dead-nettle, VC59, 3/1/2015
Image: P. Gately 

We are being asked if our list of 368 species in flower is proof of climate change but, as botanical recorders, we are stressing that a lot more evidence is needed - you can't draw many conclusions from one or two years of records. 

But the dataset we are starting to build up of what is in flower each New Year will become increasingly useful over time. So we hope that even more people will contribute next year.

Other scientific societies are running this story, as here on the Society of Biology/UK Plant Sciences Federation website And not just in Britain and Ireland: a French journalist contacted us about the Plant Hunt and you can click here to read it (in French, naturellement!)

But back to the plants we saw, and our first Plant Hunt prize-winner - watch out for the next post ;-) 

BSBI New Year Plant Hunt in the media III

Hogweed, VC59, 3/1/2015
Image: P. Gately

Another mention in the press for the BSBI New Year Plant Hunt, this time in the Independent on Sunday. Click here and scroll down to read what Jonathan Owen had to say. Nice note, although you may spot one tiny mistake which I will alert him to in the morning! 

We also get a mention in the Express here and this nice article will appear in the Times tomorrow morning.

And Tim will be interviewed again by BBC Radio Wales in the morning. 

I hope you also enjoy reading this blogpost by Ryan Clark, the Co-ordinator of this year's Plant Hunt. 

Catkin VC24 3/1/2015
Image: R. Clark

Ryan summarises his experience of the Plant Hunt and offers a glimpse into a few more of the things he'll be doing until next year's Plant Hunt rolls around! 

You can follow Ryan's blog during the coming year by going to the list on the right of blogs by BSBI members. There are around 45 at the moment and some have posted their experiences of the Plant Hunt, like this report from Oisin Duffy, who also recorded the first plant on this year's Hunt - a daisy which he photographed at 00.53 on 1st January.

With that scoop, Oisin may just qualify for one of our Plant Hunt prizes (kept that one quiet, didn't I?!), but you'll have to wait for more details until we've notified all our winners.   

Don't forget that the list of species you all recorded is available here for you to view or download.