The Twittersphere is a fine place for meeting and making new botanical friends and this is where Dr M met PhD candidate Sarah Jose from the University of Bristol a while back where he noticed her tweets on plant research news and other botanical and environmental stuff. Sarah sees PhD students as “apprentice researchers” and has this advice to new PhD starters – “Make the most of
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Dr M and his University of Reading colleague Dr Alastair Culham (@BotanyRNG) have devised a seasonal botanical foray for your delight and delectation which has now been Twitterised as #AdventBotany.
As a young botany student at Bangor University in the 1970s, Dr M was brought up on the Flora of the British Isles widely and affectionately known as “CTW” amongst the botanical community (published in 1962 by A.R. Clapham, T.G. Tutin & E.F. Warburg). Dr M always retains great affection for that beautifully produced greenish volume which went through three editions before being superseded by New
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Dr M is stuck in a train somewhere near Slough as he heads to the second meeting of the UK Plant Science Federation working group on training and skills to save UK botany from oblivion! Important work this and fortunately he is not alone, the working group has no fewer than sixteen keen and able people botanically beavering away on the issues and outcomes.
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Dr M was in Dorset recently and took the opportunity to visit one of the largest and most complex of Iron Age hillforts in Europe, Maiden Castle, whose huge multiple ramparts once protected several hundred residents. It’s an old, old site and excavations famously carried out in the 1930s and 1980s revealed the site’s 4,000-year history, from a Neolithic causewayed enclosure to a small Roman
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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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Botanical theme parks don’t come along every day and so the Eden project has carved a special niche for plant lovers everywhere. Without plants our world is no world and there are few better place to see this message in action than at Eden.
…said the spider to the … spider! And so to celebrate national insect week (ye\h Dr M knows spiders are Arachnids not Insects but…!) Dr M offers these images of a female spider and her husband (aka lunch) on their web abode outside Dr M’s parlour (aka kitchen!) recently. Dr M is particularly fond of spiders, but, however lovely they might be, Arachnida hardly
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One of the mysteries of plant ecology is exactly how plants disperse and colonise new areas of land. Now, thanks to Dr M, we can consider this puzzle solved, it’s obvious, they hitch a ride on Dr M’s fieldwork boots! Dr M is particularly fond of seeds, such beautiful, extraordinary and powerful botanical objects. Dr M has posted about seeds before (e.g. here) but
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Just as #iamabotanist gets trending on Twitter Dr M’s series of botanical selfies continues with self-confessed non-botanist (!) but definite plantophile, Dr Sophie Williams one of the team developing the new MSc in Plant Conservation at Bangor. Anyone who works so closely with people and plants IS a botanist in Dr M’s eyes and there is much to love in this account, and for Dr M two
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