The Annual Summer Meeting (ASM) is the big field meeting of the year for the whole of the BSBI. It moves around the regions of the BSBI to give people a chance to see different habitats and flowers. It is open to everyone – you don’t have to be a BSBI member or an experienced botanist. The ASM is a great opportunity to see some fabulous wildflowers in beautiful habitats and in the company of friendly botanists from across Britain and Ireland.
BSBI Annual Summer Meeting 2024
The 2024 Summer Meeting took place in May on Guernsey, which is famous for its orchid meadows, shaded hedge banks, cliff tops and coastal heaths. It was based in St Peter Port, with a selection of excursions and some ID sessions taking place at the Guernsey Museum's Société Guernesiaise rooms. Speakers at the evening talks included Lindsay de Sausmarez, head of the committee for Environment and Infrastructure.
BSBI Annual Summer Meeting 2023
The 2023 Summer Meeting was held from Friday 19th to Monday 22nd May in Killarney, Co. Kerry.
There was a mix of excursions to interesting sites, recording trips and evening talks or workshops. Excursions centred on Killarney National Park and adjacent rugged mountains and coastline of the Iveragh Peninsula. Habitats included Atlantic oak woodland, blanket bog and coastal dunes. We saw many of the species for which southwest Ireland is famous, such as Hymenophyllum (Filmy-fern) species, Saxifraga spathularis (St Patrick's-cabbage), S. hirsuta (Kidney Saxifrage), Pinguicula grandiflora (Large-flowered Butterwort) and Arbutus unedo (Strawberry-tree).
With thanks to National Parks & Wildlife Service, Ireland for their support for the excursions and talk facilities.
Recordings from the talks from the three days of the meeting are included below.
Suggestions of things to bring to a Summer Meeting:
- Hand lens
- GPS (if you have one)
- Your preferred ID book(s)
- Lunch and a drink
- Sunblock
- Waterproofs
If you have any queries please contact fieldmeetings@bsbi.org
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Friday Session
Saturday Session
Sunday Session
BSBI Annual Summer Meeting 2022
Annual Summer Meeting 2019
The 2019 Summer Meeting was held from Saturday 13th to Friday 19th July at FSC Malham Tarn, Yorkshire (v.c. 64) and featured a mix of excursions to important plant areas and visits to under-recorded tetrads for Atlas 2020.
Click on the links to read daily reports about the meeting: Run-up & Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six and a Postscript. Many thanks to David, Dave, Colin, Kate, Chris and organiser Jonathan for sending these reports and photographs of the meeting.
Plans for Summer Meetings in 2020 and 2021 had to be shelved due to Covid.
Botanists at Great Close Scar, ASM 2019. Image: David Morris
Annual Summer Meeting 2018
The 2018 Annual Summer Meeting (ASM) ran from Monday 16th to Monday 23rd July and was based at King William's College, Castletown on the Isle of Man. The meeting included site visits, recording outings, hunts for rare species, talks and ID sessions. It was a joint meeting with the British Bryological Society, so there were lots of chances to learn about mosses, liverworts and hornworts.
Click on the links to read daily reports about the meeting: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8.
So, how may records were collected during the ASM towards Atlas 2020?
Organiser Jonathan Shanklin reports: "I've typed in 20 record cards, some of these rather short records made of a field whilst in transit, others all day visits to a site, monad or tetrad. Philippa Tomlinson, the County Recorder for the Isle of Man, has additional cards, so the following is not a complete picture of the ASM.
"In all I entered 1926 records of 489 species (not counting liverworts, ladybirds and other incidental records). The most common plant was Anthoxanthum odoratum figuring on every card, closely followed by Holcus lanatus and Agrostis capillaris. 60 species had 10 or more records, 149 had five or more, whilst 178 had only one.
"The median number was two records, illustrating the high diversity of flora that we encountered across the island".
Annual Summer Meeting 2017
Monday 5th to Friday 9th May: Holywell, Flintshire
The 2017 Summer Meeting was based at the Stamford Gate Hotel in Holywell, Flintshire (VC51). The meeting aimed to help recording in the county for Atlas 2020, but also included site visits to coastal dunes and limestone grassland. There were exhibits, a bookstall, after dinner talks and ID sessions and an opportunity to socialise. You can read linked daily reports from the 2017 Summer Meeting on the BSBI News & Views blog, posted each evening by Organiser Jon Shanklin, BSBI's Field Meetings Secretary. The first report is here and the final one is here. BSBI members will also be able to read how successful the week was and how much fun participants had by reading an account in the January 2018 issue of BSBI News.
Annual Summer Meeting 2016
Thursday 19th to Monday 23rd May: Lowland Cumbria
The 2016 Summer Meeting was based at the Field Studies Council Blencathra Centre near Keswick in Cumbria. The meeting introduced participants to the flora of lowland Cumbria by a mix of site visits, talks, workshops and tetrad and site recording. After dinner each evening, there were talks to set the scene or identification workshops to discuss interesting or difficult specimens found during the day.
One of the main aims of the meeting was to help fill in some of the blank squares in the vice-county. You can find out whether we managed to do that in daily reports from the 2016 Summer Meeting on the BSBI News & Views blog here, here and here, posted each evening by Organiser Jon Shanklin, BSBI's Field Meetings Secretary.