Woodland shadows and ghosts: the lost woods in the landscape.

A two-day event on this theme opens tomorrow, with a field visit to the Peak District and then a conference on Saturday at Sheffield Hallam University. The event is organised by Professor Ian D. Rotherham and colleagues at SHU. More info here, but the field visits are fully booked, sorry.

As well as speakers and panel members from bodies such as Natural England, DEFRA and the Woodland Trust, BSBI member Richard Gulliver will be talking about 'Valley Elm Woods: a somewhat controversial lowland ghost'.

Richard will be on hand during the day to answer any BSBI-related questions and will be hoping that any BSBI members attending would come up and say hello. 

Abandoned Plant Sciences Dept. inspires artists. 

Plant Science: Forster & Heighes.
Image by Chris Wainwright

An exhibition organised by King's Cultural Institute opens tomorrow at the Inigo Rooms, Somerset House.

Plant Science was created by site-specific performance and installation artists Ewan Forster and Christopher Heighes "in response to the university's abandoned Plant Sciences Department laboratories in Herne Hill ... a site of great innovation in the teaching of biological sciences."

The exhibition runs at the Inigo Rooms, Somerset House East Wing, Strand WC2R 2LS until 11th June, and is open daily, 11.00-18.00. Admission is free. More info here.   

Another memory of Dr Richard Pankhurst (1940-2013)

BSBI member Roy Smith (V.C.57) emailed with this recollection of Dr Richard Pankhurst: 

"He was a true gentleman. My wife remembers meeting Richard over 30 years ago. It was just before we married and she came on a Hawkweed Study Group meeting to Cheddar Gorge to find out what it was all about. We arrived a little late (from Derbyshire) and Ruth was a bit apprehensive about being out of her depth. Not to worry! Richard met us and immediately put us at ease. He then took time to show Ruth the plant we were looking at at the time which, despite the Group's name, happened to be Glaucous sedge. He explained it in such a nice way that she has always remembered it".

Richard on the look-out for Scots' lovage Ligusticum scoticum
 on coastal cliffs, Isle of Lewis, 2011
Photo: Paul Smith

Roy, who has been a BSBI member since 1972, continued, "Through the hawkweeds, I met Richard occasionally at the British Museum before he moved to Edinburgh, and then occasionally at the Exhibition Meeting, the last time being three years ago at Birmingham. He always remembered me and always asked how Ruth was. He must have been on a different plane intellectually, but he didn't make you feel like that."

I agree, Roy, he wore his vast learning very lightly. BSBI botanists always extend a warm welcome to newcomers at our meetings - we all remember with warmest thanks those friendly botanists who first welcomed us into the society and showed us interesting plants in beautiful places. 

Many thanks to Roy and Ruth Smith for sharing their memory of Dr Richard Pankhurst.

Richard Pankhurst and the "sea of green". 

It's so easy each winter to forget all the botanical expertise you built up last summer. We all go out each spring to a "sea of green" and a bunch of stuff that we kind of know but can't quite place right now. It's not just you and me: seems this happens to even the most experienced botanists.

With Richard, looking at a hybrid willow,
near Uig, Isle of Lewis, July 2011
Photo: Paul Smith

On my first ever BSBI field meeting in May 2008, standing alone and nervous, clutching a scruffy second-hand copy of Hubbard's Grass Key, a kind older member approached. 

He asked, "That looks well-used, are you keen on grasses?" I blurted out that I knew very little and forgot most of that each winter, and he told me that exactly the same thing happened to him each year. 

His name badge showed that he was Dr. Richard Pankhurst, author of the Flora of the Outer Hebrides, and a celebrated BSBI botanist at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. As my jaw dropped and eyebrows flew up in disbelief, he assured me that it took him until June each year to really get his eye in again with plants in the field. And then you could really get going and learn new things, which would be great fun!

So don't panic if it's all a sea of green right now: the field ID tips you perfected last summer will soon come back to you. Meanwhile, enjoy the support of all the BSBI botanists who are keen to help and encourage you, and who aim to be as kind to beginners as the late and much-missed Dr Richard Pankhurst.   

A passion for arable weeds...

Here is our incoming President, Ian Denholm, demonstrating a passion for arable weeds nurtured by a career as an agricultural scientist at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

The Rothamsted site includes several long-term 'classical' experiments investigating the impact of agricultural practices on crop yields and floral diversity. The Broadbalk experiment initiated in 1843 has a section that has never been treated with herbicides and supports an abundance of scarce weeds including shepherd's needle, corn buttercup, Venus' looking-glass and most notably of all, corn cleavers in its only remaining original site in the UK.

Rothamsted is in the news again today, as contributors to a new study published in Ecology Letters which, according to the BBC's science pages, demonstrates "for the first time" that plant mycorrhizae aid in communication between plants, as when they are under attack by aphids.

Ash die-back. 

Interesting mix of voices on Friday's Newsnight feature about Ash die-back, including some helpful comments by Trevor Dines of Plantlife. The programme is up on iPlayer here until Friday. And there is Alex's page on Ash die-back here. We received some very illuminating observations and opinions from you during last autumn's discussions, and hope that you will keep on contacting us with your thoughts on Ash die-back, so please add a comment below or email me or Alex. 

Ask a referee (if you are a BSBI member). 

Dactylorhiza kerryensis

One of the many advantages of BSBI membership is access to our network of specialist plant referees. The BSBI Yearbook has twelve pages listing families, genera and aggregate species for which referees are available, and how to get in touch with them. Any BSBI members struggling to identify a plant, or who would would like a second opinion, can send a specimen to a referee and can expect to receive some really helpful advice. 

Our referees are national experts in their particular plant group but do not get paid for providing this service, which is completely free, but only if you are a BSBI member and are not seeking help with commercial identifications - we are not able to do a consultant's work for them! There are also two Beginners' referees, so if you are just starting out in botany and would like some help, this is the service for you. The Yearbook is sent to you when you join the society, and you can start sending material to the referees straight away.

Ian Denholm (on left) and Richard Bateman (on right)

The photo on the left shows Ian Denholm and Richard Bateman, who are the two referees for the Orchid family (apart from Epipactis).  They have spent 30 years looking at British and Irish orchids, like this gorgeous Dactylorhiza kerryensis (above) photographed in Co. Cork.

Richard and Ian published a taxonomic reassessment of British and Irish tetraploid marsh-orchids in New Journal of Botany last year, and Richard's 2011 paper on the Military Orchid was also very popular. Ian will carry on as an Orchid referee even after he takes over as BSBI President in June. He is such an orchidophile that he will always make time to look at orchid material sent in by BSBI members!