At last Twitter is alive with the sound of botany! Or at least the dulcet tones of a podcast from Dr Chris Martine of Bucknell University in the USA and a host of hashtags proclaiming #iamabotanist and #reclaimthename.
OK, the soggy Bank Holiday Monday is over and now we are into a soggy week at work! You’ve had plenty of sodden hours to contemplate this plant so here’s the low down: The mystery plant is in the family Amaranthaceae which includes three genera. (1) Chenopodium which is a genus of annual herbs with grooved, often striped stems and leaves which are often mealy
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OK it’s a wet soggy Bank Holiday Monday (as usual!) so why not dry yourself off and warm yourself up with Dr M’s mystery plant mini-quiz #3! This is a plant doing rather well in Dr M’s Mum’s garden in the Wye Valley near Chepstow at the moment. Can you get family? genus? species? Close-up image coming a bit later!
2014 marks the first anniversary of eXtreme botany and Dr M is celebrating by embarking on a European tour which tracks a botanical transect from the Czech Republic, through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and from thence to Finland – an eXtreme botanical transect indeed! Day 1 Tuesday was a long day! A very early morning start from Reading, travelling to Luton airport (Lorraine Chase comes to
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Dr M has always been particularly fond of art, and although convention wisdom tends to pigeon-hole art and science as separate disciplines Dr M feels that, on the contrary, there is a very natural connection between them, perhaps most obviously seen in the art of botanical illustration, but also much more widely as demonstrated in the recent Symbiosis project. And so Dr M is delighted to continue his series of
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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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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!).
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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All unusually quiet, even somber, group on the minibus this morning as Dr M drove students to Kynance Cove for their assessed National Vegetation Classification (NVC) assignment. The first taxonomic challenge, was more zoological than botanical: some very fine brown cows were sitting across on the path, Edwina Higginbotham let out a loud sneeze and all bar one struggled lazily to their feet. The
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Dr M has already posted (here) on those conspicuous and characteristic yellow dandelion-like plants which we see all around, especially in grassland and on waste ground and which, despite their superficial resemblance to Dandelions (Taraxacum sp), actually include a number of related genera.