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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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”
As part of the centenary celebrations of the British Ecological Society, London hosted the 11th INTECOL Congress entitled “Ecology: Into the next 100 years” from 18-23 August. Dr M is not missing the opportunity to take eXtreme botany to INTECOL to underline the importance of enhancing plant ID skills among ecologists as well as students and the general public at large.
Summer is marked out by strawberry season. Botanically there are several summer strawberries to consider! Here’s three options for starters (though only one of them suitable for desert!). Wild Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) and Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis) are very closely related species in the Rose family – Rosaceae and look rather similar but can be told apart by the following characters: Wild Strawberry:
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Since its launch earlier this year, eXtreme botany has created more than a few ripples in the global botanical community. Here, exclusively and for the first time Dr M explains what eXtreme botany means to him and what it could mean to you…
Recently Dr M was struck by an article entitled “The Death of Botany” in the “Rant and Reason” section of the June 2013 edition of the magazine of the British Ecological Society. Dr Markus Eichhorn is a botanist at the University of Nottingham and he is not a happy Dr! In the article he bemoans the loss of botany degree programmes from our Universities.
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Dr M loves these videos by Dr Fred Rumsey of the Natural History Museum, London! Dr Fred is a great botanist and his expertise and natural enthusiasm is a winning combination in this series of seasonal botanical walks in which he introduces a range of plants from different habitats through the seasons. Very inspirational!
The Gentian family has an air of the exotic about it, all those lovely deep blue arctic alpines seen on holiday in the Alps! Gentianeaceae are quite easily recognised by their opposite, entire and glabrous leaves, 4-5 petals (famously blue of course in Gentiana, but other genera are white, yellow or pink) with the petals fused into a corolla tube with 4-5 stamens borne
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In this picture thousands! But of Buttercup species there are quite a few. For example, according to the book of Stace, the latest flora of the British Isles, there are 30 species and hybrids of Ranunculus (the Latin name for the Buttercup genus). But there are three very common species which you must learn before you move on to the others! There is Creeping buttercup
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Dr M is busy surveying in Romania north of Constanta on the Black Sea coast, nice work if you can get it, although the swarms of ferocious Mosquitoes are something else! The vegetation I have been surveying includes coastal sand dunes, marshes and steppe grasslands. From my botanising, I find that the plant families are generally familiar here (loads of Asteraceae and Brassicaceae for
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