You’ve got to admire the timing, just as UK’s most prestigious botanical research centre, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, faces a public outcry over budget cuts, the new Director Professor Kathy Willis presents not one, not two or three but twenty-five programmes about botany, and all on prime-time BBC Radio 4 – in the hallowed slot just before the Archers!
Dr M’s new series of botanical “selfies” continues with #3 Julie Hawkins who also admits to a fascination with those squirting cucumbers, read on… I am… Associate Professor of Plant Systematics and Evolution, University of Reading, admission tutor for MSc Plant Diversity. I got into botany… thanks to my Granny, who fought a many-faceted campaign to “make me a botanist”. Highlights included sending a group of neighbourhood kids
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Dr M was surveying coastal vegetation recently on the Isle of Grain in Kent and he came across a small semi-circular beach and this set him thinking about (and photographing) saltmarsh vegetation. Most plants on earth are terrestrial and cannot tolerate seawater which has a devastating effect on the osmotic potential and water relations of most land plants, literally sucking the water and life out
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Cotoneaster is a diverse genus of shrubs and small trees in the family Rosaceae and much beloved of gardeners (but less so by British conservationists see below!).
This week Dr M has been taking his MSc students on a week of field days, visiting a range of sites and habitats not too far from Reading. Here is the second post from Dr M’s field day diary: Day 2: Student botanists on the bog at Wildmoor Heath, Berkshire.
Following the successful field course at the Lizard, Cornwall, Dr M is currently taking his MSc students on a week of field days, visiting a range of sites and habitats not too far from Reading. Here is the first post from Dr M’s field day diary:
The final verdict: A week at the Lizard is really not enough! Dr M and his students have seen beautiful landscapes, fascinating vegetation and lovely plants both common and rare, and much fun has been had along the way!
The final verdict: A week at the Lizard is just not enough! Dr M and his students have seen beautiful landscapes, fascinating vegetation and lovely plants both common and rare. And, naturally, being a Dr M field course, much fun has been had along the way! Dr M’s three final Lizard Diary entries are galleries of images of plants and people and fun, and
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From Dr M’s botany field course at the Lizard 2014, here’s Wizard Carter’s Lizard plant ID test on a plate! How many can you do to family? genus? species? Have a go then check the answers below, (taxonomy according to book of Stace): 1. Juncaceae Juncus foliosus (Leafy Rush) 2. Poaceae Glyceria declinata (Small Sweet-grass) 3. Crassulaceae Crassula tillaea (Mossy Stonecrop) 4. Cyperaceae Carex echinata (Star Sedge) 5. Calitrichaceae Callitriche stagnalis (Common Water-starwort) 6.
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Yes, it’s high time for another first from Dr M: a botanical fairy tail! And why not? Actually, it’s quite a long tail, so make yourself a cup of tea and settle down all comfy-like… …and Dr M will begin: