The BBC and nature have become synonymous not least through the extraordinary work of David Attenborough. The BBC Nature website is well worth a visit for information, images and videos on plants and their habitats. The BBC Nature Places pages provide information from all over the world, follow the UK link to British plants and habitats.
Dr M has already posted on a couple of online aids to tree ID: the SAPS key to trees and shrubs and the Natural History Museum (NHM) urban tree survey key. These two keys are tools to help the beginner ID common species covering around 90 species each.
Love plants? Love botany? Want to make a career out of it? Well Dr M has, with his interest and love of plants dating back to age 11 and no doubt before, though currently Dr M’s memory banks don’t allow much recall prior to age 11!
Dr M spent a long weekend in the English Lake District by Wastwater, the deepest lake on the Lake District and just down the road from Scafell Pike which reaches around 1000 m and is shown here hidden in cloud.
Why not get out and see some botany this weekend? You know you want to!
The Botanical Society of the British Isles website is an excellent place to start or continue you botanical meanderings. BSBI online provides wealth of information about plants, plant recording and links to other resources. Here Dr M provides a pictorial flavour of what is on offer but visit the site, check it out and use it!
There are a growing number of online forums and communities providing free help with plant (and other wildlife) observations and identification. Dr M has already posted on the NHM Nature Plus Plants” community, here Dr M checks out the Open University’s iSpot community.
There are a growing number of online forums and communities providing free help with plant (and other wildlife) observations and identification. Here Dr M checks out the Natural History Museum’s Nature Plus community.
This key is listed by BSBI (Botanical Society of the British Isles) as “A free and easy online key for beginners, by Quentin Groom“. So here, Dr M gives it the once over. It is undeniably free, but is it easy? And, more importantly, is it accurate and useful?
Question: How many native conifers are there in Britain (conifer = seed plants bearing cones rather than flowers)?