This is Dr M’s contribution to #AdventBotany for 2017 the fourth fantastic year of this true botanical original from Alastair Culham and Dr M at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading!  The 2017 edition is curated by Alastair Culham and you can it all here. For day 11, ironically as I wrote this post it is snowing here in deepest darkest urban
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Following their successful visit to the University of Reading campus for Fascination of Plants day 2017, Oxford Road Community School and their teacher Mr Lyford invited Dr M to contribute to the school science club. The theme was classification and Dr M took in three bin bags of plants gathered from the University campus and invited the pupils to think about how we can group
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After the success of our monkey puzzle Fascination of Plants Day two years ago (check the link here) Dr M and colleagues have done it again, they ran another Fascination of Plants Day event at the University of Reading in the beautiful Harris Garden and tropical glass house. Plus, a first for 2017, they took part in the first ever #BotanyLive event!  Organised by Anne
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The twelve images from Dr M’s previous post celebrating International Fascination of Plants Day 2017 (here) represent twelve of the things plants do for us and Dr M spells these out below. For sure, there are many more than twelve things plants do for us, but this is a great starting point for appreciating the fascination and importance of plants in all our lives
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For Fascination of Plants Day 2017 Dr M and colleagues at University of Reading are hosting local school children to come and discuss the fascination of plants on the award-winning green campus at Reading. We have planned three tasks to help explore plants and their fascination first hand: How many plants are there? What’s in the Tropical supermarket? What plants have you used today?
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As we prepare for Fascination of Plants Day next Thursday 18th May at University of Reading, we ask “how many plants have you used today?”   To get you thinking, here’s a botanical culinary conundrum: How many plants (and derivatives) do you think there are in Dr M’s Chicken curry & rice? You will need to think and hypothesize, they are by no mean all
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Did you know it’s “Fascination of Plants Day” (FoPD) on Thursday 18th May? Fascination of Plants Day is the International Day for everyone to celebrate the fascination and beauty of the plant world and the importance of plants in our lives and for the sustainability of the biosphere! 2017 finds the fourth international Fascination of Plants Day launched under the umbrella of the European
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Done the quiz? Now here’s the answers and some botanical stories about these lovely spring wild flowers: 1. Blue bell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) – probably the most familiar of these seven. Did you know that Britain is home to about half of the World’s bluebell population? Did you know its sap was used to glue feathers onto arrows in the Middle Ages and to stiffen
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This is a reprise of Dr M’s previous quiz but seems a good time to revisit! Dr M regularly goes wild on the University of Reading award-winning campus, especially now as Spring is bursting out all around with beautiful wild flowers. For a little spring flower test Dr M offers images of seven common wild flowers from the University campus, see how many you
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Dr M says: Can you believe it? #AdventBotany is now entering it’s 3rd year and is the festive botanical one to watch! Indeed it seems only yesterday Dr M was singing the Twelve days of botany and together with his colleague Dr Alastair Culham (@BotanyRNG) invented Advent Botany – 31 inspired nuggets of botanical peace, love and joy posted here and at Culham Research Group and dispersed across the
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