Dr Mark Spencer on Radio 4's Infinite Monkey Cage

I tuned in to the Infinite Monkey Cage, Radio 4's science programme, earlier today only to hear the dulcet tones of the fabulous Dr Mark Spencer talking about botany! 

Mark (on left) & Fred promoting Orchid Observers
Big Nature Day 2015, Natural History Museum
Image: L. Marsh

He was wearing his Natural History Museum hat but of course Mark is also a BSBI member and an active botanical recorder, as well as being one of the people behind Orchid Observers. 

If you don't know about this citizen science project, aimed at finding out when orchids come into flower nowadays compared with flowering times extracted from historic herbarium sheets, then click here to find out more.

Today on Radio 4 Mark was talking about brambles, forensic botany (including how hard it is to commit murder without detection!) and "weird green stuff". It was all very entertaining but with lots of Proper Science in there too, and Mark made forensic botany sound like a very cool cutting-edge career option. Excellent work Mark!  

Is Mark Spencer the Brian Cox of botany? He has the hair for it... check out this Orchid Observers video and see what you think  ;-)

If you missed today's programme, you can catch it again on iPlayer here.