Scottish Botanists' Conference 2020
The Scottish Botanists' Conference was held online in 2020. We had an exciting programme of talks, workshops and exhibits spread over the weekend of Saturday 31st October and Sunday 1st November - all online and recorded so you can view them live or later (or again). We're in the process of uploading the talks to YouTube and the exhibits can be viewed online.
Scottish Botanists' Conference 2019
We had a record attendance of 200 at the 2019 Scottish Botanists' Conference at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on 2 November. They enjoyed a packed and exciting day of botanical talks, workshops, exhibits and posters, the BSBI Scottish AGM and meeting friends. Regular features included the Identification Helpdesk, the BSBI Photographic Competition and Summerfield Bookshop.
You can see images from the event, and read comments from the participants, on Twitter by clicking on the conference hashtag #ScotBotanistsConf. (You don't need a Twitter account.)
One of the highlights of the day was the selection of mini-workshops on offer: Introductions to grasses; ferns; The vegetative key and the BSBI database and more advanced workshops on separating difficult Species Pairs in the RBGE herbarium; on Firs and Duckweeds. Here is the presentation and handout for the Duckweeds workshop which was lead by Helena Crouch & Fred Rumsey.
There just isn't enough time in the day to properly look at the exhibition so we have created a virtual exhibition with images of the posters and exhibits. Click on an image, zoom and pan around to read at your leisure, then click the right arrow to view the next image.
Abstracts of the 2019 Scottish Botanists' Conference Exhibition.Scottish Botanists' Conference is a collaboration of the BSBI, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the Botanical Society of Scotland.
Scottish Botanists' Conference 2019: programme
10.15 Welcome - Simon Milne, RBGE Regius Keeper & Chris Metherell, BSBI President
10.20 The BSBI Scottish Year – Jim McIntosh, BSBI Scottish Officer
10.40 The Botanical Society of Scotland Report – Julia Wilson, BSS President
10.50 Urban Flora of Scotland - notable finds 2015-19 – John Grace
11.30 Atlas 2020 – the final steps – Pete Stroh, BSBI England Officer
12.00 BSBI Scottish Annual General Meeting – Ian Strachan, Chair BSBI Committee for Scotland
Lunch followed by Workshops
16.00 Twinflower Research & Conservation project – Diana Gilbert
16.15 The North Face Survey – Ian Strachan
16.30 Blue Sow-thistle (Cicerbita alpina) in Scotland – Aline Finger, RBGE
16.45 Question & Answer session – a chance to have your say!
17.15 Plants at the Margin in a changing climate – Prof Robert Crawford
18.15 BSBI Photographic Competition – Natalie Harmsworth & Close
Scottish Botanists' Conference 2018
The 2018 Scottish Botanists' Conference took place on Saturday 3rd November at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. 175 participants enjoyed a full programme of interesting short botanical talks, a great display of botanical exhibits and posters - and a wide selection of ID mini-workshops. Click on the link to download a pdf of all the abstracts for the 2018 Scottish Botanists' Conference. Or view the exhibits, posters and abstracts in this virtual exhibition. Click on an image, zoom and pan around to read and then click the left arrow to see the next exhibit.
Scottish Botanists' Conference 2018: programme
10.10 Welcome by Peter Hollingsworth, Director of Science, RBGE
10.15 The BSBI Scottish Year & BSBI Scotland AGM – Ian Strachan, Chair BSBI Committee for Scotland
10.40 The Botanical Society of Scotland (BSS) Report – Brian Ballinger, BSS President
10.50 Plantlife Scotland update – Alistair Whyte, Head of Plantlife Scotland
11.30 Atlas 2020: the final year – Pete Stroh, BSBI English Officer
11.45 The National Plant Monitoring Scheme – Oli Pescott, CEH
Lunch & mini-workshops
15.40 How much pure wild Crab Apple (Malus sylvestris) is there in Scotland? – Markus Ruhsam, RBGE
15.55 Eyebrights: past, present, future – Chris Metherell & Alex Twyford
16.15 The BSBI in Ireland – Maria Long, BSBI Irish Officer
16.30 Question & Answer session
17.00 Main talk: Tree pathogens – Prof. Richard Ennos, University of Edinburgh
18.00 BSBI Photographic Competition Results – Natalie Harmsworth
BSBI / BSS Scottish Annual Meeting 2017
The 2017 Scottish Annual Meeting was held on Saturday 4th November at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. We had 151 participate in a packed and exciting day of botanical talks, workshops, exhibits and posters.
The programme is given below and you can download pdfs of each presentation by clicking on the link.
You can also view abstracts of all the exhibits by downloading this pdf.
10.25 The BSBI Scottish Year & AGM – Robin Payne, BSBI Scottish Chair
10.50 The BSS Report – Brian Ballinger, BSS President
11.30 Atlas 2020 – Jim McIntosh, BSBI Scottish Officer
11.45 The Threatened Plants Project results – Pete Stroh, BSBI Scientific Officer
13.15 ID Mini-workshops
15.45 Marsh Saxifrage in Scotland - Dr Aline Finger, RBGE
16.00 Discovery of a Scottish Monkeyflower – Dr Mario Vallejo-Marin, University of Stirling
16.15 Plant monitoring & conservation SWT Stirling – Roy Sexton, SWT
17.00 Mountain Flowers – special guest speaker Mike Scott
BSBI / BSS Scottish Annual Meeting 2016
Just over 110 members enjoyed a packed day of talks, workshops, exhibits and meeting friends at the 2016 event which was held at Battleby Conference Centre, Perth on the 5th of November.
The highlight was the main talk on Aliens in the British Flora by Professor Mick Crawley. Mick is a brilliant and very entertaining speaker and introduced us to interesting concepts such as ‘enemy release’ whereby species that have left behind in their native environments most or all of their specialist natural enemies are able to thrive. He observed that some habitats are apparently more easily colonised by aliens than others e.g. waste ground and the built environment, compared with bog and salt marsh for example and concluded that relatively few alien plant species are invasive of semi-natural habitats in Britain. It was amazing to learn that the cost of removal of invasive species at the London Olympic 2012 site was £70 million and concluded that a few alien species are likely to prove to be extremely expensive to control. His talk showed us that studying aliens give us very interesting insights into plant ecology and evolution. You can see a pdf version of Mick’s talk or indeed many of the other Scottish Annual Meetings talks by clicking the links below.
10.15 Welcome & Introduction – John Faulkner, BSBI President
10.25 The BSBI Scottish Year – Robin Payne, Chairman, BSBI Committee for Scotland
10.50 The BSS Report – John Grace, BSS President
11.30 Atlas 2020 – Progress Report – Jim McIntosh, BSBI Scottish Officer
11.45 Atlas Recording in the Cairngorm National Park - Andy Amphlett, BSBI Recorder Banffshire
14.00 How I became a botanist - Michael Braithwaite, BSBI Recorder Emeritus
14.15 The sunny sides of summits - Jay Mackinnon, Lecturer, Edinburgh Napier University
14.30 A year in the life of a Scottish Recorder - Stephen Bungard, BSBI Recorder North Ebudes
14.45 The biggest problems in European fern taxonomy? - Fred Rumsey, NHM & BPS President
17.00 Main talk: Aliens in the British Flora, Professor Mick Crawley
The other great highlight of the day was the mini-workshops. We offered six – two on popular taxonomic problems such as Identifying Agrostis (Arthur Copping) or Distinguishing Scaly Male-fern species (Fred Rumsey); three giving Introductions to Sedges (Chris Metherell), Stoneworts (Claudia Ferguson-Smyth) and microscope techniques (Sandy Edwards) respectively; and one giving members a chance to feedback on the BSBI Review. Handouts are available for some of these - just click the link.
Thirty exhibitors mounted a tremendous display of botanical discovery and endeavour across Scotland and further afield. Read the Abstracts summarising their exhibits.
The day closed with the announcement of the winners of the BSBI Photographic Competition and then dinner together before we all headed home. A thoroughly enjoyable day for Scottish botanists and their guests from further afield.