Which are the commonest plant species in Britain? Recently Dr M has investigated the 30 most common British plant species based on data in the New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora and the Online Atlas of the British and Irish Flora. The top 30 include species from 10 plant families including nine of the top twenty plant families. The 30 commonest species includes eight species from the Poaceae, seven
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The Natural History Bookstore (NHBS) tells Dr M there is a new flora on the block called Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland
Cope & Gray (2009) refer to Nardeae as “an odd little tribe whose unusual spikelets give no clue as to its origin or affinities”.
A small tribe with two genera – Melica and Glyceria – in Britain.
Which are the commonest species in Britain? The answer to Dr M’s question depends on what Dr M means by “common” and what Dr M means by “Britain“!
Juncaceae is the rush family, in Britain most commonly represented by Juncus (True Rushes) and Luzula (Wood Rushes). The common name “Rush” has been used for many unrelated plants of wet places with stiff, upright stems or leaves, such as Sweet Rush (Acorus, Acoraceae), Flowering Rush (Butomus), Scouring Rush (Equisetum, Equisetaceae the Horsetails!) and Bullrush (Typha spp., Typhaceae) also the name Bullrush has been
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If you have read Dr M’s eXtreme botany manifesto you will know that Dr M is an advocate of video as a medium for teaching botany, for example learning species identification. Dr M is discussing these issues at INTECOL in London today and in September at the Enhancing Fieldwork Learning Showcase Event.
And so Dr M has at last arrived at the Cyperaceae, not that he has been avoiding it, Dr M finds the Cyperaceae a very fascinating family indeed. It is just that Dr M has been rather preoccupied with the Poaceae recently. This post redresses the balance ever so slightly and in the future Dr M will post more and more on sedges and
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Dr M is warming up for the INTECOL Conference in London this week where he will be discussing using video for plant ID. In preparation, Dr M has been perusing botany videos on the Internet for quantity and quality and here Molly Marquand (seen here previously on New England Asteraceae) explains about different kinds of monocot. Check out NewEnglandWild for more videos on monocots and other plants.
The Devil has the best tunes but the Poaceae surely has all the best words – LIGULE, AURICLE, GLUME, SPIKELET and LODICULE!