Dr M is delighted to provide this update on the activities of botanical artist Inky Leaves, aka Jessica Shepherd. Since her botanical selfie for Dr M in July 2014, she has moved from the UK to take up residence – and a new studio – in sunny Spain (sorry linguists and Españophiles, WordPress doesn’t allow the proper Spanish ñ in the title field!). Over to Inky:
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Dr M is delighted to welcome this botanical selfie from Ryan Clark who was, until last year, BSc student at University of Reading, and is now busy developing his botanical skills with the likes of BSBI. With keen, enthusiastic and able botanists like Ryan, the future of Botany remains assured!
Dr M’s University of Reading signature module the legendary Vegetation Survey and Assessment (VSA) module has come to an end for another year (“shame!” I hear you cry!). But, as Dr M was keen to point out, in his end of module address to the assembled students from MSc Plant Diversity and MSc SISS, this is not an end but a beginning of their eXtreme
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In a previous post (here) Dr M explained what the NVC is and how to “do” an NVC survey by collecting quadrat data from representative samples in homogenous stands of vegetation. Here Dr M outlines the procedure for putting an NVC name to your quadrat data. Now, Dr M assumes you have collected your quadrat data, at least five quadrats in each homogenous stand of vegetation.
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There’s none so blind as those who will not see, and plants suffer much more than their fair share from this blindness! It is high time then, for Dr M to introduce this botanical selfie by Dawn Sanders as she embarks on an important research project investigating the global pandemic called “plant blindness”. Plant blindness is both fascinating (why is plant blindness so prevalent?) and
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With International Women’s Day on Sunday 8th March Dr M is wondering, could botany be the most gender neutral profession? It would be nice to think so, but a glance into botanical history suggests otherwise. Back in the 18th century, dallying with Linnaeus’ sexual system of plant taxonomy and classification was certainly considered an unsuitable occupation for a lady!
It’s Dr M’s Birthday and he has been enjoying special Dr M birthday cookies lovingly hand-crafted by his devoted nieces: A well as eating and drinking and partying, birthdays are times of celebration and reflection, and so to all his botanical students, colleagues, disciples and followers and indeed, the whole world, Dr M sends this birthday message of peace, love and eXtreme botanical joy:
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OK if you have read the post here and tested yourself, here are the answers:
Dr M is used to a lot of questions from his students on the MSc Plant Diversity University of Reading! And once they started using the veg key then there’s been a lot more questions! But one of the most frequent is “Dr M, with a rosette plant how can we tell if the leaves are opposite or alternate?”
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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