On Monday 13th April, Dr M appeared at Cafe Scientifique a joint venture between The British Science Association Thames Valley Branch and the University of Reading at Monroes Rock Bar St Mary’s Butts, Reading Town Centre. Cafe Scientifique is the place where, for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine (beer if you’re Dr M), anyone can come to explore the
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A notoriously difficult plant group for the field botanist is the Eyebrights (Euphrasia – previously placed in the Scrophulariaceae now in the Orobanchaceae family). Eyebrights are lovely grassland and heathland plants with little zygomorphic flowers, bright white with a central yellow blotch and purple veins (hence Eye-bright). With approximately 22 species and 70 (yes seventy!) hybrids Euphrasia ID is eXtreme botany to be sure! But recently, Euphrasia
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2014 was drmgoeswild.com’s second Christmas and he celebrated in style with the joint production of #AdventBotany with University of Reading colleague Alastair Culham creating an imaginative and typically sideways glance at 25 Christmas plants.
Dr M and his colleague Alastair Culham had fun putting together #AdventBotany this year it was posted both here and on the Culham Research Group blog here and proved very popular!
Dr M and his University of Reading colleague Dr Alastair Culham (@BotanyRNG) have devised a seasonal botanical foray for your delight and delectation which has now been Twitterised as #AdventBotany.
It seems only a moment ago Dr M was deleting his talk at the last Annual Exhibition Meeting of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (Natural History Museum, London 2013 – and if you missed it, he retrieved it and you can revisit it here and here). But now it’s all botanical stations go once more, and Saturday will see the 2014 BSBI AEM, this
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Dr M first discovered Niki Simpson’s work while admiring the colour illustrations in the Vegetative Key. The clarity and accuracy of the illustrations seemed to reach a new level and it was only a shame that there were not more in that volume! Meeting her unexpectedly at a botanical illustration event in London recently, Dr M was determined to learn more about her approach
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So says one of Dr M’s MSc Plant Diversity students, and, well she’s right of course! It is fast becoming a key tool of the eXtreme botanists trade.
Dr M is delighted to continue this series of botanical selfies with a colleague, Richard Bateman, visiting Professor at University of Reading, whose wit and wisdom has leavened many a board of studies meeting.
If you arrived here and have not completed Dr M’s Maiden Castle mini-quiz and you would like to, then check it out here! and then the answers here! If you have, well, with Part 1, the easy bit, out of the way, here’s the real eXtreme botany bit: vegetative plant ID and in chalk grassland – one of the most species-rich communities in Britain – to
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