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News and gossip about the society and botany in general. Email us if you have something interesting to report (a new plant find, perhaps) or any questions. Anything written here is not necessarily the considered opinion of the BSBI.
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New Journal of Botany online (6/1/2012)
BSBI members are entitled to online access to papers published in NJB. We have just set up the link and are testing it with various web browsers. If you would like to give it a try, email me for a password and then follow the link below to get to the NJB web site. Anyone who is not a member can see abstracts, but they can’t get the full text without paying.
>> Go to the New Journal of Botany
Reprieve for biological recording programmes (19th December 2011)
The University of Birmingham has granted a temporary reprieve for the biological recording programmes in 2012, thanks to concerted lobbying from just about every organisation involved in ecology in the UK, and to the vociferous protest by students. So there will be recruitment this year for the Certificate in Species Identification. However, the search is on for another university or educational institution to host these programmes in future, as they do not fit into the UoB’s research profile. We will be advertising the courses as usual, when details are available.
Jim’s blog from Tristan da Cunha (7th December 2011)
Jim McIntosh, our Scottish Officer, who is currently on a year’s sabbatical in Tristan da Cunha, sends this link to his blog for anyone who wants to follow his adventures.
Biological recording programmes to close (7th December 2011)
The BSBI is dismayed to learn that the University of Birmingham plans to close its centre in Shrewsbury and the biological recording programmes associated with it. These courses were started in the 1990s as a result of a survey by our then president, Frank Perring, which found that there was very little academic training in species identification in Britain. Since then the programmes have become enormously successful, with 50 people a year undertaking the species identification certificate, 30 starting the Masters level course, and hundreds more on day schools or FISCs, which the university runs on our behalf.
The move seems to be a response to the government’s slashing of funding. Universities won’t receive a penny of subsidy for professional development traning from next year, and the UoB is probably worried that its profits from the programmes will decline. But this will leave the UK with no academic route for ecologists to learn species identification - something which is no longer taught on most undergraduate courses. It also leaves the BSBI without its library and operations in Shrewsbury, which have been mutually beneficial.
Our president, Ian Bonner, has written to express his dismay. There is no evidence that the cuts to government funding will leave these programmes in the red, as most of the students are supported by their employers. It is also a blow to other universities, such as Liverpool, which sends its undergraduates and post grads to Birmingham for these skills. Many BSBI referees and experts also teach on the courses. If you want to express your opinion, or find out more (tutors have not yet been informed of the planned cuts), visit the Save Bham web page on Facebook.
Crab Apple seeds wanted (4/11/2011)
East Malling research has a long-standing research programme developing apple rootstocks for the amateur and professional markets. Rootstocks primarily control the vigour of the tree, while also promoting early cropping. Rootstocks must also be simple to propagate, as many apple varieties do not take readily from cuttings. There is an increasing need to develop new rootstocks, resistant to replant diseases, insect pests (woolly aphid) and able to tolerate a wide range of environmental stresses, from drought to flooding as our climate changes and becomes more unpredictable. Our continuing efforts in the rootstock breeding programme will address this broad range of problems, using cutting edge molecular techniques. It may be that Malus sylvestris is better adapted to the European climate than either the domestic apple or its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii. However, to date, very little work has been carried out on this species, to evaluate its characteristics.
The apple genome sequence, which was published just over a year ago revealed that the majority of the domestic apple genome was derived from Malus sieversii. However, a subsequent reanalysis of the data by scientists at East Malling research highlighted certain regions of the genome that were more similar to Malus sylvestris than to Malus sieversii. This could be for a number of reasons, including the hybridisation of Malus x domestica with Malus sylvestris in the past. This is plausible, as Malus sylvestris is an abundant species in Northern Europe. However, more data is needed to verify whether this is indeed the case, or whether other processes unrelated to hybridisation are confusing the issue. In collaboration with the Nova Scotia Agricultural college (NSAC) EMR plan to address this question.
What we need: seeds from accessions of Malus sylvestris and, if possible, scion wood. Accessions must be as morphologically consistent to Malus sylvestris as possible, as hybrids will confuse the issue. Also clear location data, and if possible a photograph of the tree and the fruit would be of great help. Furthermore, please attempt to collect seeds from trees that are part of M. sylvestris stands, or are away from large plantings of M. xdomestica.
Please send clearly labelled seeds to: Dr Richard Harrison, East Malling Research, New Road, East Malling, ME19 6BJ
Flora of Cardiganshire (26/10/2011)
Since the introduction of information technology there has been something of an arms race between Flora writers to produce ever bigger and more elaborate county Floras, often supported by electronic information in some manner. The process was kicked off by Dorothy Cadbury and the crew at the University of Birmingham in the 1970s with the Computer-mapped Flora of Warwickshire. A big step forward came in 1999 with the CD included in the Flora of Cornwall. Since then there have been web sites and other associated materials, but this is the first time that I am aware of that someone has had the perspicacity and organisational skills to prepare an electronic version of a full county Flora and make it available to the public. This most impressive and valuable of county Floras is now available in full, for free, to anyone who might want to read it. Go to the Cardiganshire page...
New Journal of Botany (6/9/2011)
I got the following from Maney: “The launch issue of the New Journal of Botany was mailed to members of BSBI and to subscribers last Friday. It has also been available online to institutional subscribers for the past few days. The first issue has appeared rather later than was originally intended and it is very likely the second issue will not appear to schedule either. However, we hope it will be possible to improve the flow of submissions through the refereeing system to enable the journal to appear on schedule in 2012.”
A new finance team for the BSBI (5/9/2011)
The BSBI wishes to thank Terry Swainbank and his assistant Anne Wilson, his Office Manager at Synergis Technologies for their work on the Society’s finances over the last year or two. The Society has now appointed two of its members, Antony Timmins as Hon. Treasurer and Clive Lovatt as Administrative Officer.
Clive has recently returned from over 20 years as an auditor and tax advisor in Africa and is best known for his research on the Avon Gorge and the history of Bristol botanists, who as he has explained at the BSBI’s November 2010 conference in Birmingham were recording plants by grid squares as far back as 1868.
eNews for September 2011 (1/9/2011)
We’ve just sent out the eNewsletter for September. It is aimed at county recorders, but we don’t mind if anyone else wants to read it (although we might call you nosey...). Here you go: eNewsSept2011 (pdf 30 KB).
Woodland Advisor at Plantlife (28/8/2011)
The conservation charity Plantlife is advertising for a woodland advisor, and they want someone who knows their plants. Here’s the job description. If anyone is interested, follow this link to Plantlife.
Recorders’ Conference 2012 (12/8/2011)
The Recorders’ Conference is one of the main events of the year for serious botanists in Britain & Ireland. There are talks on taxonomy, recording and other matters of interest, and workshops, posters and displays about the latest developments and projects. It is aimed primarily at County Recorders and Referees but many other people - not just BSBI members. Beginners would be out of their depth, though, so do ask us for advice if you are not sure it would be for you. The conference takes place over 3 days and is largely residential at Preston Montford Field Centre, near Shrewsbury, with the main event taking place at the University of Birmingham’s base in Shrewsbury. One theme for 2012 will be DNA barcoding. The cost is around £200 - we shall advertise the booking form presently. If you are interested, put the date (Friday 13th - Sunday 15th April 2012) in your diary and you can email us to reserve a place. (NB this is right after Easter, so check that you will be free.) Email Alex for more in formation.
Rhododendron Survey (12/8/2011)
Arthur Chater sends the following snippet: The paper by James Cullen based largely on the material of naturalised Rhododendron sent in by BSBI members has now been published in Hanburyana 5: 11-29 (2011). It is available as a free download from the Hanburyana website. As expected, the conclusion is that naturalised populations commonly identified as R. ponticum in fact represent parts of a complex variable hybrid swarm involving that species and R. catawbiense and R. maximum, and perhaps R. macrophyllum. Many individuals show morphological characters from these other species, but even those that do not are distinguishable from wild R. ponticum in its native areas mainly in variation in corolla and corolla spot colour and in physiological vigour and invasiveness. The name R. x superponticum Cullen is proposed for our naturalised plants. A key and descriptions of the relevant species are given, and these enable one to record in more detail the extent to which characters of the other species are present in any particular plant or population of what we have up to now been calling R. ponticum.
Atlas of British and Irish Hawkweeds (10/6/2011)
Another triumph from the Tim Rich / National Museum of Wales stable - an up to date atlas of hawkweeds (Hieracium and Pilosella spp.) throughout the British Isles. The book has maps and silhouettes of all the species listed in Peter Sell’s Flora, together with county checklists. It’s a simple little book, but one that is based on a lot of hard-earned data, laboriously and expertly accumulated by David McCosh over 30 years of fieldwork and poring over herbarium specimens.
An interesting thing about this publication is how it was produced. All over Britain there are museums, records centres and charities whose work involves natural history studies, but the National Museum of Wales beats them all hands-down when it comes to productivity. The best you can get from a typical records centre is an out-of-date compilation of relatively easy data such as common plants or popular animals like butterflies. There is simply no other organisation that produces hard research like this (whatever you might think of critical taxa, they are hard). The secret is Dr Rich’s unique approach, where he works with naturalists to support them with the difficult tasks that they want help with, rather than displacing them for the easy jobs such as compiling data. He puts on his walking boots and trudges to the tops of mountains to refind species that have not been seen for ages, and he curates the voucher specimens professionally at the museum. These are things that people want help with, so the outcome is synergistic. If all government money was spent complementing the work of voluntary naturalists like McCosh, rather than competing with and displacing them, we would all be getting so much better value for our tax money.
So congratulations to Tim, and David, for this splendid cooperation, and to the authorities at NMW for setting such a fine example. To everyone at a records centre, museum or wildlife charity, we would say: get a copy, read it and learn. This is what you should all be doing. And if you’re not, then be concerned for your future because new standards are being set.
NB, the Atlas is available from Summerfield Books for £17.50. Inevitably, perhaps, a few errors have been spotted already, and are listed in the corrigenda section on the Pubs pages.
The mystery of Bloxam & Hayes (7/6/2011)
Chris Liffen is puzzling over the biographies of ‘Bloxam and Hayes’, whose names appear on numerous sheets at the University of Birmingham. Bloxam is fairly easy, as Andrew Bloxham (that was his name but seemingly not how he liked to spell it) is well known, but who was Hayes? There was a Sutton Hayes who was a botanist who contributed some sheets to the Sloane herbarium, but also a Rev J. Hayes who apparently found Dryopteris aemula in Coalbrookdale some time before 1878 (according to William Phillips’s Filices of Shropshire). Of course, the initials S and J could easily be confused. But why are the sheets at BIRM labelled ‘Hayes or Bloxam?’ A curious confusion. Anyone have any ideas?
For more on this and many other biographical issues, visit Chris’s excellent web site Meiosis.
Species accounts (13/5/2011)
How I wish we could solve the species accounts problem... The desire is to have a web site where all the plants of the British Isles are listed, along with correct ID photographs and succinct but interesting accounts, and where people can add their observations, link to documents etc. I started doing these back in the 1990s, but never got more than 50 or so rare plants done. And the technology keeps changing, making it easier and, in some ways, harder. Anyhow, we have recently deleted our NetObjects species accounts pages and completely replaced them with a Drupal version that users can log onto and edit. But very few people do. The government people will be launching their own version, complete with the text from the New Atlas, presently, but unless they find a way to get people to contribute it may not be much more successful. Perhaps we should all just contribute to Wikipedia - but they have issues, too, with very few species covered either on Wikipedia or Wikispecies.
Anyhow, users who linked to our old species accounts might want to update their links to the newer ones.
Garlic Mustard (8/5/2011)
Invasive aliens are such a bore these days. International treaties have given a huge boost to the industry, and money is pouring into projects that really seem to do very little good at all. It’s easy to see why. Faced with the complexity of managing important sites for fragile habitats and endangered species, or trying to reconcile the interests of food production with wildlife protection, it must be so appealing to have something simple to do like chop down some Japanese Knotweed. No-one’s going to protest about that, are they? It doesn’t really make the world a much better place, but it pays the bills.
One such project is the Global Garlic Mustard Field Survey, which starts off with many of the same exaggerated claims about threatening natural resources as all these other projects. But if you read on you find that they do actually seem to be trying to collect some useful information. Not on whether Alliaria petiolata actually causes any real harm, seemingly (that’s taken for granted as true because there is a lot of it in some places) but at least they are doing some research on the plant itself. I’d like to see what happens to it as a demonstration of international cooperation, too.
Have a look at the web site and help out if you too believe that aliens are evil, if you are interested in research, or you feel like doing things for other people out of the goodness of your heart: www.garlicmustard.org.
New sedge book (6/5/2011)
Jacob Koopman tells us about the imminent publication of his book, Carex Europaea. There is a flyer with a prepublication offer. It doesn’t give any example pages, as we tend to do with BSBI Handbooks, but Jacob would be happy to answer questions and promises to send some samples when they are available. Here’s the flyer (pdf 800 kb).
Proofreader wanted (6/5/2011)
Anna Montin, who is studying English at Helsinki, has translated the university’s Botanical garden Guidebook into English and would like a native speaker to check it for her, specifically the common names of plants. If anyone would be interested in helping her with this, email me and I’ll forward your email to Anna (to avoid wasting people’s time by having multiple offers). OK, no more offers needed. Thanks!
Calling all taxonomists (24/4/2011)
Quentin Groom sends this intriguing suggestion...
The name changes of Trichophorum cespitosum and T. germanicum make a mockery of taxonomy. Latin names are intended to provide a unique, relatively stable and universal name to a taxon concept. Issues of priority, to give credit to authors, should always be of secondary importance. After all taxonomists are providing names for everyone in the world, not just for their own credit. In this case, what constitutes one taxa or another has never changed, only the names. The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) has a mechanism that could have been used in this case, that of conservation of the established name. However, this wasn’t used and we will forever be in a mess.
I suggest that the ICBN has a new rule. When names get so tangled up that it is impossible to use a name without confusion, then two totally different names should be chosen and all new literature should use these names. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism to force taxonomists to sort this out and it is frustrating that it was so un-necessary. Please, taxonomists, think of the people that have to use your names.
BRC workshop (7/4/2011)
The UK Biological Records Centre is holding a workshop for schemes and societies on 7th May to discuss future support for recording and demonstrate some of the projects that the BRC is currently undertaking. It seems to be open to anyone who might be interested. It occurs to me that winter might have been a better time to hold it if they want naturalists there, but it looks like it is more for computer geeks, really. Here’s the leaflet (pdf 41 kb).
Another dodgy taxon (7/4/2011)
Mick Crawley spotted that our Maps Scheme map for Carduus acanthoides was clearly just erroneous records of Carduus crispus. It was almost wall-to-wall in some counties, such as Devon, but completely absent from most areas. It turns out that acanthoides is an old name for crispus, as well as being the current name for a rare non-native taxon. Please check your database to make sure your records of acanthoides are what you intend them to be. Any old records of acanthoides can confidently be changed to crispus unless you have overwhelming evidence that that species really was intended (by which I mean a properly determined specimen in a public herbarium). Until we get some good records of acanthoides, we shall remove all the dots from the map.
More about The Plant List (20/3/2011)
Clive Stace contributes the following thoughts about the new web site:
“The Plant List is a very useful and comprehensive listing of all known plant names, which seeks to highlight the names which are accepted (i.e. are considered to be ‘good species’), to list the synonyms of each of these, and to provide a third category of unresolved names which might be treated as acceptable or as synonyms when enough evidence has been accumulated. A word or two of warning is necessary. This is very much a working list, not a finished document, and it should not be cited as an authority on genus or species limits. To test it I looked up two taxa with which I am familiar:
“The entry for Combretaceae is not up to date and does not reflect the classification of the family as laid out in The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants, Volume 9 (2007). Since this is now 4 years old it must have been available, so it would be interesting to know why the compilers of The Plant List have deviated from it so much. Several of their ‘accepted’ genera are unsustainable.
“The treatment of the genus Vulpia (Poaceae) is, in contrast, much more acceptable. However, the generic limits are very questionable, and the most recently described (2002) species, V. alpina, from Tibet, is treated as accepted. I wonder how the compilers decided that they had sufficient information to come to this conclusion. I am told by Robert Soreng (Smithsonian Institution), who saw the type in 2004, that it is Vulpia myuros. At the very best it should have been treated as ‘unresolved’, especially as one would not have expected a new species of Vulpia to be found in Tibet.
“This is not meant to be a criticism of The Plant List, but a warning that it should not be considered authoritative.”
NFBR Conference (10/3/2011)
We have an appeal from the National Federation for Biological Recording to promote their annual conference and AGM on 7th - 8th April. Plenty of places left, apparently. Here is the leaflet and booking form (pdf 280 kB).
Missing papers (21/2/2011)
Occasionally we get requests for papers from Watsonia or other publications where we do not have a copy. If anyone has any of the following and would scan them or lend them to us, I would be very grateful.
- Watsonia Vol. 2, part 4 (specifically Nelmes’s paper, p. 249-252). Done! Thanks, Martin.
- Watsonia Vol. 3, part 5 (specificall Morton’s paper, p. 244-252). Done! Thanks, Martin.
- BSBI Conference Report 1957, Progress in the Study of the British Flora (specifically Goodway, p. 116-118). Done! Thanks, Quentin.
Thank you.
International Botanical Congress (9/2/2011)
It seems a long way away to me, but the organisers have asked us to mention it, so here it is. There will be the 18th International Botanical Congress in Melbourne, Australia, in July this year. Here’s the link. If this information is useful to you, do please drop me a note about it, and I shall make sure similar things get posted in future.
New Rare Plant Registers (7/2/2011)
Graeme Kay has just sent the latest instar of his Rare Plant Register for Cheshire, to add to the increasingly impressive selection that is now available on the relevant section of this web site. One interesting innovation I have noticed in some recent ones is a comprehensive index, listing sites as well as species. Huntingdonshire and Northumberland have this, I see. It addresses the main problem of RPRs, which is that the most useful thing would be to know which rare plants occur on a site - but that is almost impossible to extract from a book that is arranged taxonomically. I think that these indexes will make them much more valuable to site managers and conservationists.
Anyone who has one of the newer versions of Microsoft Office will find these indexes very easy to make. Essentially, you simply highlight a word, click the “mark entry” button, click on “mark all” and you’re done - every instance of that word will be indexed. If you are writing a Rare Plant Register and want further help on this, do email me for detailed instructions, but it is pretty simple to figure out, if you haven’t done this before.
New web site for biographies (1/2/2011)
BSBI member Chris Liffen has produced a new web site to expand upon the biographies in the Herbaria at Home wiki, partly out of interest and partly to help with the computerisation of old records. Herb at Home has revolutionised historical botany, giving us the ability sometimes to plot the activities of famous collectors on a daily basis. And it has transpired that there are many significant botanists who do not feature in the standard accounts such as Ray Desmond’s Dictionary of Botanists. Anyway, enough said: take a look at meiosis, a web site that deserves your undivided attention.
County recorders’ email addresses (10/1/2011)
I have changed the way county recorders are listed on the web site. Until now it has essentially been a list of worthies - all the county recorders’ names but generally nothing useful, like an email address, except for a few exceptions. The reasons for this were varied. Until recently many recorders didn’t have email addresses, or only had slow dial-up access. Putting email addresses on the web generates spam and unwanted requests from consultants, etc.
Over the last few years these conditions have changed. Almost everyone has broadband now and spam filters are free on systems like Google Mail and Hotmail. Consultants and members of the public have learned more about how to get data, so they are less likely to send inappropriate requests. And county recorders have become more sophisticated about how they respond to requests. They know they don’t have to drop everything to deal with a demand from a total stranger - they can just hit the delete button.
So I think it is time to change the recorders page from a passive list of important people to an active page allowing members and the public to contact us, and I shall encourage recorders to either create their own web site, publicise their email address, or preferably both. If you are a county recorder, you might consider setting up a separate email account to keep your normal email address private. If you are not listed yet, and would be willing to be, let me know.
The other change is that I’ve generally only listed one contact per county, to save space. The official list of county recorders is of course published in the Yearbook. So what you will now get on the web site is a list of contacts, who don’t necessarily have to be the v.c. recorder at all, and their listing is not intended to imply seniority or anything like that. It will be up to the v.c. recorders concerned to decide who is listed.
Trichophorum cespitosum (8/1/2011)
It was entirely predictable that name changes in Trichophorum cespitosum would cause chaos. What used to be known as T. cespitosum is now called T. germanicum, and the name cespitosum is now given to what was a very rare subspecies. This follows the rules of botanical nomenclature, but it is very unhelpful for recorders. One consequence is that we get lots of records of cespitosum and are not entirely sure what is meant.
On the Maps Scheme we have therefore had to interpret all recent records of T. cespitosum as germanicum, so we have very few post-2000 records of real T. cespitosum. Therefore, if you have any real T. cespitosum records, could you please send them in with a note saying that you know what you are talking about and you really do mean cespitosum. It is a very northerly plant, found only in the best bogs in the wettest places (as in the photo, here, which is of the Shetland site). Thanks.
>> Maps Scheme map of T. cespitosum
>> Maps Scheme map of T. germanicum
Global Plant List (5th January 2011)
This web site: http://www.theplantlist.org/ claims to have a comprehensive list of the current scientific name, plus synonyms, of all plant species. Sounds interesting. If anyone wants to send comments about it, I’ll post them here.
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