Plants in flower in Derbyshire & North Wiltshire today. 

Sherardia arvensis in N. Wilts today
Image: T. Havenith

Tim Havenith and his betrothed took a walk in Melksham, North Wiltshire today and found six species of plant in flower, including this lovely Sherardia arvensis Field Madder. They also found Lamium purpureum, Euphorbia peplus, Senecio vulgaris, Bellis perennis and Taraxacum officinale agg. 


Records are also in from two recorders in Derbyshire: Jonathan Mortin found six species this afternoon -  including Gorse Ulex europaeus - near Buxton, while Roy Smith found 16 wild plants during a half-hour dog-walk in Swanwick - but no Gorse! 

Lamium purpureum in N. Wilts today
Image: T. Havenith

Roy also told me "Finally, in our front garden, just hanging on to part of a flower, was a self-set  Hieracium dalense (an endemic - originally planted, of course!). Erodium cicutarium would have made it two days earlier, but on the last day, the petal had dropped off!" 

Plant Hunt Co-ordinator Tim Rich was out again today - in Cardiff and apparently it was freezing. But he and Ceri saw some nice things like Treacle Mustard Erysimum cheiranthoides which they claim "warmed us up a bit". I think that's what you call putting a positive spin on it! 

More people are going out recording in the morning - let's hope the weather is ok for them. 

BSBI New Year's Plant Hunt: half-time scores. 

Some of the VC55 recording team
Image: L. Marsh

Results are in from nine counties so far - interest in recording what is in flower right now has been unprecedented this year! 

Botanists were out on the 28th of December, with Plant Hunt Co-ordinator Tim Rich, Dawn Nelson and Ceri Gait finding 52 species in flower at Pagham, Sussex, including some nice finds like Erodium moschatum. Tim posted details on Facebook as he went, and other counties have followed suit - records from Livingston VC 84 to Guernsey. 

The best place to see what they all found is here. Some nice photos - and if people send me pix I can post them here, too! 

Geranium cf rotundifolium
Image: L. Marsh

More people were out yesterday - 31 species recorded in Cornwall and 17 in the Chilterns, records in from Bedfordshire VC30 and Midlothian VC83. Dawn Nelson was out recording again, this time on Hayling Island VC11 and found an amazing 39 species single-handed. And 10 recorders including Brian Laney (VC32) and me (based in VC55) recorded 63 species in the centre of Leicester, including a possible new county record: Geranium rotundifolium.

This is not in the latest vice-county checklist but BSBI President Ian Denholm says "I think G. rotundifolium is spreading - it is turning up as a pavement weed in Herts, along with Stellaria pallida and (amazingly) Saxifraga tridactylites." With extra species still coming in from around the county, the VC55 running total has reached 68 so far. 

Rashmi and Heracleum sphondylium
Near National Space Centre, Leicester
Image: L. Marsh

Other groups (like Warwickshire VC38) are due to go out recording today and botanists on Orkney and Uist, in Tayside, Suffolk and in Ireland have all been using Facebook to tell each other about the Plant Hunt. Botanists are also sending in photos via Twitter - Sophie Leguil found Solanum nigrum growing by the Thames, and she also found a mystery plant - photo here.  

I hear that Sarah Whild - who, along with Tim Rich, started the NYD Plant Hunt in January 2012 - is taking a team out in Shropshire on New Year's Day. So watch this space for even more records of which wild or naturalised plants are in flower just now. Or follow the action as it happens on BSBI's Twitter feed or Facebook page. 

Or... it's not too late for you to get out there yourself and join the BSBI New Year's Plant Hunt!   

Barcode of Life - on Radio 4 now, in BSBI News last year. 

Reunited at the BSBI/RBGE Mapping Conference 2013:
Pearman, Preston & Dines (l to r),
 Co-editors of the New Atlas of the British & Irish Flora.
Image: L. Marsh

Good to hear Prof Pete Hollingsworth from RBGE on Radio 4's 'Inside Science' programme last night - and up on iPlayer now - talking about the International Barcode of Life project. 

BSBI Scottish Officer Jim McIntosh opens the Conference
Image: L. Marsh

Pete told his fellow BSBI members about the project at last year's BSBI/RBGE Mapping Conference, when he summarised emerging opportunities for enhancing our understanding of plant biodiversity based on recent developments in molecular genetics.

Dr Natasha de Vere of National Botanic Garden of Wales also spoke about Britain's contribution to the International Barcode of Life project, with her work at Barcode Wales.

You can see the abstracts of their talks here, along with those of all our other conference speakers. Six of these presentations have since been written up as papers in New Journal of Botany, with more promised for 2014. Report on the Conference in BSBI News #122 - not yet available to non-members, sorry.

Tim Rich and Taraxacum breconense, a rare Welsh endemic
Image: C. Gait

For those of us new to the subject, there is a helpful Beginners guide to DNA barcoding and another here.

And yes, the Tim Rich mentioned in the reports on Barcode Wales is the very same BSBI botanist/handbook author/NJB editor who is co-ordinating the BSBI New Year's Day Plant Hunt. Have you decided yet where and when you will be recording which wild or naturalised plants are in flower just now? Don't forget to take some selfies while out in the field and send them to me so they can be posted here on the Blog. 

Find out what inspired Tim to become a botanist here (bottom left).  

How does a botanist get to work: part four.

Susanne looking for orchids in Madagascar
Image: A. Hinsley

Yet another BSBI botanist on the end of a rope hoping to see a nice plant... 

When she isn't promoting BSBI at outreach events like the Society for Economic Botany Conference 2013, or researching orchid distribution in Turkey for her PhD, or telling Guardian readers about ethnobotany, or offering a poster at the BSBI AEM on 'Plant Blindness and Botanical Illiteracy", BSBI member Susanne Masters can be found getting to her botanical work by hanging on to a rope. 

A nice example of using one plant to get to another? 

Read more about what Susanne has been up to here on this blogpost by BSBI member Jonathan Mitchley. 

Which herbaria has Chris been in this year?

The Herbarium at RBGE
Image: C. Metherell

In pursuit of specimens to examine for his forthcoming BSBI handbook on Euphrasia aka eyebrights, Chris Metherell has been visiting herbaria all over the country this year. 

He also ran a Euphrasia workshop at the Scottish Annual Meeting last month to try out the keys for the handbook.

Chris reports that it was "very successful, with 50% of participants able to get their ID right first time using the keys, which - considering most had never tried Euphrasia before - was pretty good. 

"And I picked up some more errors and a few good ideas for improvements". 

Lochan on Lewis
Image: P. Smith

While in Edinburgh, Chris took the opportunity to check out some herbarium sheets at the Royal Botanic Garden. 

He tells me "Having been on Lewis this summer I wanted to finalise the E. campbelliae description and key entries. And I've been working on the other N. Scotland specialities E. rotundifolia and E. marshallii and to a lesser extent E. foulaensis and E. heslop-harrisonii. 

"The E. rotundifolia description has been tightened up, meaning that quite a lot of material has been redetermined as E. foulaensis x marshalii, but there's still room for the species - we'll see if we can find it next summer."

Herbarium cabinet at RBGE
Image: C. Metherell

But as well as a day of measuring plant bits and writing descriptions, Chris also unearthed some treasure which will necessitate a return visit: "The real find was the Halcrow-Johnson herbarium which is kept separately from the rest. Mostly pre-war material refereed by H.W. Pugsley and, I suspect, not much used since. Almost all from Orkney but with a bit of material from Shetland. Looking forward to really digging into it on my next visit".  

Having spent Hebridean evenings watching eminent botanists like the late Richard Pankhurst with a copy of Sell & Murrell and a bagful of eyebrights - he always insisted on five specimens rather than one, to get a better idea of what the "average" plant looks like in that population - I can vouch for the difficulty of some of the species and wouldn't attempt them without a more experienced botanist to help with keying-out. 

Machair with eyebrights on Eriskay
Image: L. Gravestock

Fortunately, wherever there are nice plants, there is always somebody in the BSBI support network who can help, but a Euphrasia handbook would be really useful. 

Let's hope Chris can keep this pace up and who knows, we may even see one published in time for next Christmas.

Hope you all get some nice botanical presents in your stockings tomorrow - Merry Christmas to botanists everywhere!

Every record tells a story...

Rubus surrejanus in Aberdeenshire sunlight
Image: D. Welch

I've been helping Plant Records Editor Mike Porter with proof-reading the next batch of records for New Journal of Botany and have been struck again by how much information is condensed into each record. 

Some of these plants have rarely been recorded before - David Welch, the BSBI's County Recorder for Kincardineshire and North Aberdeenshire, found Rubus surrejanus in two places, which yielded only the second and third records of this plant for the whole of Scotland. 

Alongside the serious info that you need in a plant record - who found it, who determined it (ie checked what it was), location with grid ref - there are evocative phrases like "19 plants in damp tussocky Molinia under birch in damp birch woodland". 


As Mike Porter says, "Entries like <<Dactylorhiza traunsteinerioides *69 Westmorland: small grazed ledges & flushed turf in upland limestone pasture>> cannot fail to raise the spirits and inspire the planning of future expeditions".

Mike uses symbols - don't worry, there's a key!- to indicate interesting things about each plant - is it a new county record, or is a particular non-native plant an archaeophyte or a neophyte?  

Close-up: can you see why this is no "ordinary" bramble?
Image: D. Welch

And there's a huge variety of habitats! Here are a few examples: a roadside lay-by, surrounds of a power station, edge of an arable field, by a curling pond near a boathouse and "grassland, M40 Warwick Services northbound". BSBI botanical recorders find interesting plants all over the place!

If you have recorded any interesting plants, you need to contact your County Recorder(s) who will pass any records on to Mike if they are happy with them. You may need to press a herbarium-standard specimen and send it to a BSBI referee to be checked - like the specimen above, which David pressed for his own personal herbarium. Notes here on BSBI best practice in collecting specimens by the master, Arthur Chater. 

A typical Plant ID training session - this one is in Leics.
Image: L. Marsh

You can't benefit from the BSBI referee system unless you are a member, but everything else you need to get started is on our Resources page so next spring, if you've never tried botanical recording, why not download a recording card and have a go?

And if you don't yet feel confident enough to record on your own - try going out with a local recording group or check out BSBI training opportunities. You'll find out what support is available in your area and how you could start contributing towards the plant records held in our database.

BSBI members: watch out for New Journal of Botany dropping through your letterbox any day now and it also features a paper by David on the floristics of contrasting grazed-down moorland sites initially dominated by heather.

It's nearly time for BSBI's New Year's Day Plant Hunt.  

Might this be in flower on New Year's Day?
Image: C. Ferguson-Smyth

Ok, diaries out: Tim Rich has been in touch about the New Year's Day Hunt 2014 and we can pick a good day for recording - it doesn't have to be New Year's Day. 

Tim says: "Please join us for the third New Year's Day wild flower hunt to record as many species as you can in flower".

The rules are simple:

1. Pick one day between 28th December 2013 and 1st January 2014, when the weather is decent enough to record in.

2. Record wild and naturalised plants (but not planted) in flower.

3. Record for up to 3 hours. 

4. Email details (number of species, time and location) to Tim or Sarah. 

Tim add "After our amazing 63 species in flower on 1/1/2012, we had fewer species last year (see BSBI News 123:40) and suspect that there will be fewer this year, too".