An eXtreme Botanical Corker!
Dr M was today totally bowled over and utterly charmed by a truly massive Cork Oak (Quercus suber) at Standish Hospital, in Gloucestershire.
Dr M meets a great 18th century polymath and botanist, but who is he?
During the 71 years of my highly productive lifetime I: Said “A fool you know, is a man who never tried an experiment in his life”
Dr M on the road: eXtreme botany through the car window!
With Bank Holiday travels (and traffic jams!) in prospect Dr M says: Let’s play that classic travel game “eXtreme botany through the car window!”
Can you tell your Dipsacus from your Helminthotheca?
Dr M has been reminded in his recent field surveys of two similar (but different!) rosette plants of disturbed ground, both with rough, blistery-bristly leaves and often found growing together, but which can be confused by the beginning botanist – even though they are from rather different families. So how to tell them apart?
“…zoologists are villainous Dr Evils determined to destroy the Earth” says University Lecturer
Dr M is delighted to introduce this typically non-contentious guest post from fellow botanist John H Warren
Are you getting enough botany? Dr M’s white flower plant ID quiz
New research shows that the oft-quoted 5-a-day fruit and veg may not be enough to ward off disease and even premature death, but rather, 7-10 is much better.
Something botanical for the weekend Madam?
Dr M is particularly fond of a slug or two of fine Gin at the weekend, and what finer and more appropriate brand could there be for the plant doctor than The Botanist?
Botany is dead, long-live eXtreme botany!
Last year Dr M was struck by an article entitled“The Death of Botany” in the “Rant and Reason” section of the June 2013 edition of the magazine of the British Ecological Society. In this rant, Dr Markus Eichhorn, botanist at the University of Nottingham, bemoaned the loss of botany degree programmes from UK Universities.
Reading Science Week – the Symbiosis project!
The resident exhibition for Reading Science Week was the Imagining Science Symbiosis Project about which Dr M has posted before and within which Dr M is deeply embedded!
Go 21st century botany!
Recently, Dr M discovered a botanical website called simply: “Go Botany“, based at the New England Wild Flower Society in the USA. This wonderful botanical site embraces botany in the 21st century with a whole suite of online teaching and learning tools, basic and advanced online keys, plant sharing and interaction with the botanical community young and old alike.