Dr M and students on the MSc Plant Diversity at the University of Reading have just (May 2016) returned from the annual botanical study trip to the botanical hotspot and Important Plant Area that is the Lizard District of Cornwall. The trip included amazing botanical walks along the stunning Cornish coastline including Kennack Sands to Cadgwith Cove, Lizard Head to Caerthyllian Cove and Kynance Cove. During
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Did you notice this last weekend (mid April) was the first real sign that the countryside is awakening from its winter slumbers and the trees are coming into glorious leaf? Certainly Dr M saw that it was so in and around Reading and across into Wales. That transition – from the starkly beautiful bare twigs on tree and hedge to the emerging haze green
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Did you have a go at Dr M’s brownfield botany quiz? If not try it out here and come back to check the answers below. Post-industrial brownfield land is home to a host of colonising species both native and non-native species.  Amongst the non-natives are many non-invasive naturalised species as well as some more pernicious alien invasive species, several of which are listed on Schedule 9 of
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Perish the thought that Dr M would ever talk rubbish, but recently a survey in the Dagenham area lead to this close encounter of a post-industrial kind, replete with the results of endless fly-tipping, accompanied by a diversity of ruderal plants which you commonly find colonising such places, as well as one or two less common! Below, Dr M shares images of twenty of the
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Did you have a go at Dr M’s flowers in the moss botany quiz from his stop over in the Crewe Travelodge recently?  If not try it out here and come back to check the answers below. Between Dr M’s hotel and the stream was a mossy lawn with shed loads of Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus (Springy Turf Moss) but here and there were some other plants.
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Dr M says: Botany is everywhere, yes even at Travelodge! Dr M had the pleasure of staying at a Travelodge near Crewe recently. Nice comfy bed and a pleasant view across a meandering stream to a fragment of wet woodland with Salix fragilis (Crack-willow). But be warned: the view will be quite different once summer approaches, but more of that later! Dr M had
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Happy St Patrick’s Day! According to Irish legend, the druids in Ireland looked at the Shamrock as a sacred plant because its leaves formed a triad and the number three (or “tree” in Irish*) was a mystical number in the Celtic religion. But what, exactly and botanically, is Shamrock? Is it one of these? Or these? Well according to a 1988 survey of Irish people
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The outcome could not have been better!  The first Botanical University Challenge drew five fabulous teams with botanical knowledge, skill and enthusiasm in spades. Literally! Indeed, by all accounts, this was a great day for British botany! Not only was it enjoyable and fun but it was also a supremely optimistic day for British botany, and its future looks secure in the hands of these talented
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After the initial inspiration and what seems like an eternity of planning by Dr M (University of Reading) and John Warren (IBERS Aberystwyth) the great day arrived, 10/03/16 and the first Botanical University Challenge ever in the Jodrell lecture Theatre at RBG Kew. Five fabulous teams – Reading, Aberystwyth, Edge Hill, Southampton and Kew – with botanical knowledge, skill and enthusiasm in spades, prepared
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The first ever Botanical University Challenge is nigh! Hosted by self-confessed @BotanyGeek and Kew alumnus James Wong BUC 2016 will be held in the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew from 2 pm Thursday 10th March 2016. As the final teams swot up and Dr M and colleagues John Warren and Laura Rozario make the final preparations and our host @botanygeek hones his botanical repartee, Dr M
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