Dr M has previously posted here about “Imagining Science” a living Science-art collaboration. The next collaborative project for Reading Science Week 2014 is entitled “Symbiosis” and is about art-science relationships and uses lichens – the weird wonderful complex plant-fungus dual organisms – as a source of inspiration!
Dr M is particularly fond of the University of Reading campus which extends over 123 ha of grassland, open water and woodland. Known as Whiteknights Park, it is home to over 400 species of native plants and many more planted and naturalised and is an ideal setting for Dr M’s teaching of plant identification and vegetation survey methods.
It’s high time for another of Dr M’s top 20 flowering plant families, this time it is the turn of the Apiaceae. Maybe you know this family by the older name – Umbelliferae – a name very evocative of the typical inflorescence – the umbel or umbrella-like inflorescence.
Spring came late this year, jostling with glorious summer (while it lasted). Now, as temperatures drop and nights draw in, autumn makes its way centre-stage. Summer’s legacy of sunshine (recall the heatwave?) seems rather fruitful in our countryside and a host of blackberries has now given way to a myriad acorns (2013 is looking like a mast year for oaks), haws (Hawthorn berries) and
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A small and, according to Cope & Gray (2009), controversial tribe with one very useful character – the ligule is not membranous but is a fringe of hairs. Several other tribes also have this, e.g. Cynodonteae which includes the salt marsh grasses Spartina, but Arundineae is the main tribe of native British grasses with this type of ligule. The inflorescence is a panicle, (large
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Following Dr M’s recent post on the “Arb Boys” continuing professional development training session on common tree and shrub identification, you can now watch the video of the proceedings entitled “these are a few of our favourite leaves”
Dr M says its high time for another bryophyte blog post! And with all this recent rain the bryophyte flora has really perked up again for its peak autumn season. Mosses are of two main kinds: pleurocarps – branched and creeping for the most part, and acrocarps – unbranched and erect. One of the commonest acrocarps in the lowlands, growing on base rich and
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Which are the commonest plant species in Britain? Recently Dr M has investigated the 30 most common British plant species based on data in the New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora and the Online Atlas of the British and Irish Flora. The top 30 include species from 10 plant families including nine of the top twenty plant families. With this post Dr M has reached number 30!
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The new University term is nearly upon us and students enrolling for the University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity and MSc Species Identification and Survey Skills will be taking Dr M’s module on Vegetation Survey and Assessment on Thursdays in the Autumn Term.
Dr M continues his quest for the ultimate plant identification video at the Enhancing Fieldwork Learning Showcase Event 2013 – at the Field Studies Council in Betws-y-Coed, in the glorious Snowdonia National Park. Dr M’s presentation on Saturday afternoon reminds the Showcase Event audience that the ability to identify common plants is a key skill needed by graduates entering the conservation, ecology and environmental consultancy sectors.
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