Dr M has previously posted reviews of the two indispensable eXtreme botanical books: the veg key and the book of Stace. The eXtreme botanist just cannot be without these on their shelves. But also important are the illustrated plant ID guides to supplement the advanced ID books. You need to be able to check determinations against descriptions of the plant in the floras but also
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So, have you mown the lawn for the last time before Christmas? Well, if, like Dr M your answer is no, then, like Dr M, no doubt you can be found gazing guiltily out of the window at a scruffy, soggy mat of grasses, covered in equally soggy, manky leaves and praying for snow to hide it all away!
Can you recognise the commonest plant species in Britain? Dr M has previously posted 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.
Dr M is particularly fond of mosses and was delighted to find on the British Bryological Society Facebook page a link to this Moss in Nature Competition from Digital Photography Review.
Dr M is developing a new botanical business concept – eXtreme bryology meets artistic floristry and the result is Bryo-Logical Floristry!
It is now December and with many plants dead or heading to dormancy, it is a month of eXtreme botany for sure! Interested to see what younger botanical eyes might make of this season, Dr M passed his camera to his 10 year old niece on Sunday afternoon
Two of Dr M’s students, Christine and Waheed, came up with a devilishly eXtreme botanical challenge to test different aspects of the botanists’ ID skills at the BSBI Annual Exhibition Meeting on Saturday 23rd November at the Natural History Museum, London!
Even if you were present at Dr M’s presentation at the afternoon talks of the BSBI Annual Exhibition Meeting on Saturday 23rd November you will have missed Dr M’s presentation!
Yes, Dr M headed into London Town for the Annual Exhibition Meeting of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland on Saturday 23rd November at the Natural History Museum. Dr M was there with his eXtreme botany manifesto, and with some of his current students who prepared an eXtreme botanical challenge for the delegates!
OK, so you find this plant on abandoned railway sidings in West London. It looks like Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) but the leaves are all wrong, they are very thin, even grass-like, alternate and clasping the stem. The flower books are not a lot of help and none of the illustrations looks anything like it.