The Twelve Days of Botany!
It’s time to revisit this Dr M classic – the Twelve Days of Botanical Christmas! (First broadcast in December 2014!)
Dr M welcomes a new MSc student cohort to the joys of botany!
Dr M says: It’s that time of year again! Last year’s University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity students (class of 2016 pictured above) are just about finishing their dissertations and we are already wishing them well as they get ready to move on to botanical pastures new, while the class of 2017 are soon to be on their way to Reading for a new exciting
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Botanical hello’s and goodbye’s at the University of Reading!
Dr M says: It’s that time of year again! Last year’s University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity students (class of 2015 pictured above) are just about finishing their dissertations and we are already wishing them well as they get ready to move on to botanical pastures new, while the class of 2016 are soon to be on their way to Reading for a new exciting
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Dr M sings “cheerio” not “goodbye” to his VSA students for another year…
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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From Arthur Tansley to John Rodwell: Dr M on the NVC
Dr M is teaching his MSc students at University of Reading about Phase 2 surveys and The National Vegetation Classification (NVC). The NVC was developed at Lancaster University in the 1980s when Dr M was a post-doc researcher there working with Andrew Malloch and John Rodwell (the editor of the NVC) during the writing of the NVC and so it is all rather close
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Elementary my dear Dr M: Book of Stace #3 of 3 – Le denouement!
So, here at last, in this taxonomic journey through the Book of Stace, after #1 and #2 we have arrived at our final destination, #3, tada!. This is #3 of 3, in TV terms this is the denouement, this is where Sherlock H or Hercule P gathers everyone together in the room and through a series of blistering, breathtaking, brain-boggling literary couplets, reveals the identity
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Dr M’s students take the Stace test #2 of 3: let’s key out plant Families!
Recently, Dr M set his MSc Plant Diversity and SISS students what he likes to call “The Stace test” – a couple of plants provided by Dr M for his students to key out using the general key to families and then moving on to the detailed keys to ID to genus and species. The first task, as with any plant ID, is to check
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Tools of the eXtreme botanists trade: Dr M introduces the Book of Stace (#1 of 3)
As a young botany student at Bangor University in the 1970s, Dr M was brought up on the Flora of the British Isles widely and affectionately known as “CTW” amongst the botanical community (published in 1962 by A.R. Clapham, T.G. Tutin & E.F. Warburg). Dr M always retains great affection for that beautifully produced greenish volume which went through three editions before being superseded by New
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