2021 County Report for Lanarkshire

Michael Philip & Peter Wiggins

2021 saw the adoption in neighbouring Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire of the ‘loose network model’ developed successfully in Lanarkshire in recent years.

To facilitate this, several people in the Lanarkshire network have given moral and practical support to the new initiatives and, as a result, the level of recording activity in our own vice-county has been somewhat reduced.

Nevertheless over 8,000 records have been uploaded to the DDb.  All Lanarkshire data has been handled this year by our new Joint Recorder, Peter Wiggins, whose hard work and enthusiasm have been invaluable.

The main progress has been further, very detailed recording by Malcolm Macneill in the Glasgow conurbation including many hortals and aliens.  Of particular interest are some of our less common urban weeds: Agrostis scabra (Rough Bent) has been seen twice in 2021 - with only one previous record in the vice-county this century; Picris hieracioides (Hawkweed Oxtongue) is now being found; and Polypogon viridis (Water Bent) is becoming widespread in the Glasgow area.

Across the wider vice-county the main challenge facing us is that, although Lanarkshire is generally well-recorded, much of the existing record is at tetrad, quadrant or hectad level: there are still well over 800 monads to be recorded at 1km resolution.  Plenty of scope for everyone to get involved in our busy outings programme in 2022 - visiting botanists are welcome to lend a hand!