At last the wonderful botanical outreach project #wildflowerhour has hit Dr M’s fav family – the Poaceae with the #grasschallenge for Sunday 23rd June 2019! To celebrate, Dr M popped into his garden and plucked some grasses from his Poaceae-rich #nomow lawn. Without really trying, Dr M returned with a big bunch of grasses and then set about trying to photograph them in the
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Dr M’s favourite place in Reading is the Oxfam music shop in the Town centre where you can find, amongst others, second hand CDs, vinyls and sheet music aplenty. A visit this sunny saturday yielded nothing especially tempting and so Dr M journeyed across the road to the Oxfam bookshop were he was intrigued by a copy of Gerard’s herbal in the glass cabinet reserved
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As you no doubt know, Dr M is particularly fond of Poaceae, and was therefore especially delighted to see that the species recovery trust has a brand new grass ID quiz for all to test their Poaceous knowledge! So, they ask, how many UK native grasses can you identify? Are you a Giant Fescue or a Hairy Brome? 40 questions to test, tease and entertain. Have
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Dr M says: Your patience is rewarded and here at last is Part the Second of Dr M’s long-awaited Poaceae quiz! Grasses, so the Poaceae song goes, and as Dr M’s students on University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity know well, have “flowers reduced to spikelets strange yet magical”. The grass spikelet is indeed a wondrous thing and has an intrinsic beauty and fascination
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Ah, the English Summer, that time of uncertain sunshine and certain hay fever! Hay fever or not, regular visitor to these pages will know that Dr M is particularly fond of grasses – or Poaceae or Graminea or whatever you like to call them! And to celebrate all that is green wonderful Dr M’s first Poaceae ID quiz is coming to these pages –
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Dr M attended the three day Association of Science Education (ASE), at the University of Reading, and he joined the SAPS stand – Science and Plants for Schools – to talk to educators about how to get teachers and students excited about plants and “generate a culture of excitement about plants!” Dr M took along with him some plants and other resources including a coat stand
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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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It’s one thing to rampage the ramparts and scale the slopes of Maiden Castle, but have you survived Dr M’s chalk grassland mini-quiz?
Dr M says: It’s that time of year again! Last year’s University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity students (class of 2014 pictured above) are just about finishing their dissertations and ready to move on to botanical pastures new, while the class of 2015 are soon to be on their way to Reading for a new exciting and, if Dr M has anything to do with
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For the love of seeds how did you do?! Well, there were three obvious families clinging to Dr M’s eXtreme botany boots, and one less obvious and no doubt others lurking in nooks, crannies and crevices as they do!