Dr M’s autumn term extreme botany quiz!

Dr M has been busy enjoying imparting botanical wisdom to his latest cohort of MSc students on the MSc Plant Diversity and MSc SISS at University of Reading with his signature module Vegetation Survey and Assessment which started early October.

The module spans 20 week through autumn and spring terms sand by week 4 of the autumn term Dr M’s students have been introduced to common UK plant families, taken on a journey to the centre of a flower, initiated into the joys and the fourth Book of Stace, and been exposed to Dr M’s very own extreme botany quiz!  Not for the botanically faint-hearted is Dr M’s VSA module!

Fifteen botanical snippets, bits and pieces, odds and sods of plants, that require from the students, not so much identification to species, but rather to be “interpreted” – botanically speaking.

So for example first up #1 was a hat, admittedly a very nice hat, reminiscent of the kind of hat botanical plant hunters might have worn in days of yore.  But apart from the possible plant-hunter link, what is so extremely botanical about this hat?  Simply to say hat, or even botanical hat, would not likely yield the requisite response from Dr M, nor even any marks!  Instead some insight, even intelligent botanical guesswork, into the botanical nature of the hat is what is called for! So, what could that be?

Intrigued? Well, there’s more were that came from, so take a look at the fifteen images below and try to get into the extreme botany (and into Dr M’s botanical brainery) and check back in a day or so for the solutions.

Dr M says: Be of good botanical cheer and be botanically prepared, in most cases there is more than one possible solution and not necessarily any ultimate “right answer” that is part of the nature, charm and intrigue of extreme botany!  Enjoy!