Dr M says: It’s that time of year again! Last year’s University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity students (class of 2014 pictured above) are just about finishing their dissertations and ready to move on to botanical pastures new, while the class of 2015 are soon to be on their way to Reading for a new exciting and, if Dr M has anything to do with
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The National Trust has gone crazy wild about getting the nation’s kids outside at the weekend so they’ve put together a list of 50 things to do before you’re 11¾ along with the 50 place finder to locate great places to do them, woods, fields, hills, caves, ponds and streams! They want to encourage kids to get mucky, discover their wild side and get closer to
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Dr M asks: What’s not to love about orchids? I mean it’s a botanical given, orchids – everyone loves them! OK, Dr M might prefer Poaceae but that’s Dr M for you!
Dr M was surveying coastal vegetation recently on the Isle of Grain in Kent and he came across a small semi-circular beach and this set him thinking about (and photographing) saltmarsh vegetation. Most plants on earth are terrestrial and cannot tolerate seawater which has a devastating effect on the osmotic potential and water relations of most land plants, literally sucking the water and life out
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For the field botanist finding a new plant is eXtreme botany indeed. Until recently, Dr M had never seen the rare Mousetail (Myosurus minimus) in the wild. But one day, all this changed, for ever!
You thought it could never happen here? Some will stop at nothing to have their way with our botanical freedoms. The shocking facts here: You heard, saw and felt it here first! So now: Write to your MP! Petition the Queen! Do whatever it takes! The world must see botanical reason. Dr M says: Botany is our birthright, there are no exceptions! And… APRIL FOOL!
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You know it by now, Dr M is particularly fond of lichens! And especially excited that the resident exhibition at Reading Science Week was the Symbiosis project which takes lichens as a metaphor for the creative symbiosis between artists and scientists. In celebration of this union, Dr M has embarked on a series of music videos collectively entitled “a voyage round my lichen twigs” and all inspired by
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Dr M is particularly fond of lichens and especially delighted that the resident exhibition at Reading Science Week was the Symbiosis project which takes lichens as a metaphor for the creative symbiosis between artists and scientists. In celebration of this union, Dr M has embarked on a series of music videos collectively entitled “a voyage round my lichen twigs” and all inspired by the diversity of lichens encountered
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Dr M is particularly fond of lichens and especially delighted that the resident exhibition at Reading Science Week was the Symbiosis project which takes lichens as a metaphor for the creative symbiosis between artists and scientists.
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!