Dr M and students on the MSc Plant Diversity at the University of Reading have just (May 2016) returned from the annual botanical study trip to the botanical hotspot and Important Plant Area that is the Lizard District of Cornwall. The trip included amazing botanical walks along the stunning Cornish coastline including Kennack Sands to Cadgwith Cove, Lizard Head to Caerthyllian Cove and Kynance Cove. During
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Here’s a report of Day 4 of Dr M’s University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity field course held in April in which the intrepid group of eXtreme botanists were out and about checking the botany of saltmarshes on the Isle of Purbeck… …and the adjacent great shingle spit of Chesil beach – fascinating geomorphological form comprising 18 miles and 180 billion pebbles (allegedly!) – but not
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Dr M plus colleague Alastair Culham and University of Reading MSc students packed luggage, equipment and themselves in the botany bus and set off on the botanical eXtravaganza which is the Plant Diversity field course. From Reading the botany bus wound its way through the Berkshire Countryside to Hampshire, bound for Roydon Woods Site of Special Scientific Interest, the first stop on this two
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What’s the botanical buzz of 2015? Well, Dr M is taking eXtreme botany and #iamabotanist to the Annual Conference of the Association of Science Education (ASE) at University of Reading 7-10 January 2015.
2014 was drmgoeswild.com’s second Christmas and he celebrated in style with the joint production of #AdventBotany with University of Reading colleague Alastair Culham creating an imaginative and typically sideways glance at 25 Christmas plants.
Dr M is delighted to congratulate John Warren on his very recent promotion to a Chair in Botany at Aberystwyth University and to welcome him back here to present this guest blog on 21st century botany, it’s not all long beards, khaki shorts and Cyclanthaceous pith helmets…
If you arrived here and have not completed Dr M’s Maiden Castle mini-quiz and you would like to, then check it out here! and then the answers here! If you have, well, with Part 1, the easy bit, out of the way, here’s the real eXtreme botany bit: vegetative plant ID and in chalk grassland – one of the most species-rich communities in Britain – to
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OK, day three of eXtreme botany on tour finds our eight intrepid barmy botanists (and a driver) heading out of Poland into Lithuania, Latvia and ending up (more by luck than judgement) at a forest campsite on the Baltic coast of Estonia, near the town of Parnu. At around 600 km (ca 370 miles) this is not as eXtreme as day 1 but bearing in mind we had stop-offs in
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2014 marks the first anniversary of eXtreme botany and Dr M is celebrating by embarking on a European tour from the Czech Republic, through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and from thence across the water to Finland! The first posts already published have seen 8 barmy botanists in a bus (and a driver) travelling from Czech Republic through Poland. Dr M knows you are waiting for the next
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Day 2 of this eXtreme botanical journey, and Dr M has concluded that this group comprises eight barmy botanists in a bus (and a driver!). So to celebrate this discovery Dr M has started to compose a song to entertain his fellow seven barmy botanists (and a driver) en route through Poland and beyond. And the more Dr M ponders it, the more it fits well
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