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Ethnobotany

Advent Botany 2017 – Day 11: Let it Sloe, let it Sloe, let it Sloe!

This is Dr M’s contribution to #AdventBotany for 2017 the fourth fantastic year of this true botanical original from Alastair Culham and Dr M at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading!  The 2017 edition is curated by Alastair Culham and you can it all here. For day 11, ironically as I wrote this post it is snowing here in deepest darkest urban
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That was FoPD (and #BotanyLive), that was!

After the success of our monkey puzzle Fascination of Plants Day two years ago (check the link here) Dr M and colleagues have done it again, they ran another Fascination of Plants Day event at the University of Reading in the beautiful Harris Garden and tropical glass house. Plus, a first for 2017, they took part in the first ever #BotanyLive event!  Organised by Anne
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We eat, sleep and breathe plants so why are we blind to them?

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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Dr M’s botanical selfies #5 – Jessica Shepherd eats, shoots and Inky Leaves…

Dr M has always been particularly fond of art, and although convention wisdom tends to pigeon-hole art and science as separate disciplines Dr M feels that, on the contrary, there is a very natural connection between them, perhaps most obviously seen in the art of botanical illustration, but also much more widely as demonstrated in the recent Symbiosis project. And so Dr M is delighted to continue his series of
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Shed-loads of botany on BBC Radio 4!

You’ve got to admire the timing, just as UK’s most prestigious botanical research centre, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, faces  a public outcry over budget cuts, the new Director Professor Kathy Willis presents not one, not two or three but twenty-five programmes about botany, and all on prime-time BBC Radio 4 – in the hallowed slot just before the Archers!


Garden grass games, great squirting cucumbers and more with Dr Julie Hawkins

Dr M’s new series of botanical “selfies” continues with #3 Julie Hawkins who also admits to a fascination with those squirting cucumbers, read on… I am… Associate Professor of Plant Systematics and Evolution, University of Reading, admission tutor for MSc Plant Diversity. I got into botany… thanks to my Granny, who fought a many-faceted campaign to “make me a botanist”. Highlights included sending a group of neighbourhood kids
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Dr M’s botanical selfies #1 – Tales from the gin forest and eXtreme aquatic botany…

The World braces itself for Dr M’s long awaited new series of botanical “selfies” in which botanists introduce themselves photographically and in their own words… The series kicks off with: Susanne Masters botanical consultant, and PhD researcher at University of Kent.