Dr M has been investigating lichen diversity with his MSc students and you can check out the other posts on liking lichen growth forms and foliose lichens, and fruticose lichens. Here Dr M takes a look at some of the crustose lichens that students examined in the lab under the expert guidance of botanical colleague Fay Newbery.
“Lichens are not plants!” I hear you say! So what are lichens doing here on this botanical website?! Well, says Dr M, they are at least half plants! Lichens are a kind of symbiotic union between two very different groups of organisms (different Kingdoms even!) a fungus (Fungi Kingdom) and an algae (Plant Kingdom).
Dr M reports that the Society for Biology has just undertaken the first ever analysis of activities across the UK’s plant science sector. The study involved a year of consultation with over 300 individuals and organisations from the UK plant science community. The report entitled: “UK Plant Science: Current status and future challenges” was released at the Royal Society, London on Tuesday 28th January 2014.
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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.
To contrast with the endless rains of recent weeks Dr M is pleased to present this guest blog: an eXtreme botanical story from drier climes! Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a desert, and in that desert was a house, and beside that house was a garden and in that garden was a visitor, a botanist and plant
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Dr M is leading a botanical vigil in Forbury Park, Reading and what is at stake is no less than the end of botany as we know it!
Dr M had planned to put a day aside last term to tidy his office, it didn’t happen! A tidy desk is a great motivator allegedly, so what does that mean for Dr M who has always seen himself as a bit of a Dr M-otivator!? Albert Einstein and Roald Dahl had messy desks! That’s good surely?!
Dr M’s MSc New Year Plant Hunt (borrowed from the idea by BSBI) took place on Tuesday 14th January 2014. Three groups of MSc students walked the University of Reading Whiteknights campus for 1 hour each in the chilly sunshine collecting any plant in flower and these were taken back to the lab and identified
Dr M looked out of his window and notices – it’s raining again! Roger Brugge of the Meteorology Department at University of Reading, puts the recent rains in context: “after a dry start to December 2013, a total of 165.3 mm (roughly 6.5 inches) of rain was recorded in the 28 days ending on 8 January 2014.”
Dr M put his hand deep into the warm wet webness, otherwise known as the internet, and pulled out this moist, clammy and dankly fascinating feature on fungi! Yuk!