280 people booked to attend the 2024 British & Irish Botanical Conference, held on Saturday 23rd November in the Flett Lecture Theatre (capacity 200!) at the Natural History Museum, London. Huge thanks to our hosts who made this prestigious venue available free of charge, so we were able to offer an event that was free to attend and free for exhibitors.
The programme featured ten talks, ten flash talks (a record number), 42 exhibits (another record number) including John Poland's legendary vegetative plant ID quiz, and herbarium tours and workshops aimed at both beginner and advanced botanists. If you weren't able to join us in person, the links below will allow you to enjoy recordings of most of the talks (a few more to come) and view digital versions of some of the exhibits.
The Talks
Session 1: Supporting everyone keen to learn more about our wild plants
- BSBI’s training offer – Prof Paul Ashton (BSBI incoming President)
- How taking a FISC and studying at the Eden Project helped me on my botanical journey - Rebecca Keeling (FISC Level 3 and BSc Horticulture (plant science) student, Eden Project)
- How Identiplant helped kickstart my botanical career - Dr Kiera Chapman (author, Identiplant student 2024 and Research Fellow, University of Oxford)
- Flash talks from exhibitors
Session 2: Resources for botanists across Britain and Ireland
- New botanical ID guides from the Natural History Museum – Stephanie Holt (UK Biodiversity Training Manager, Centre for UK Nature, Natural History Museum)
- Invasive Plant Species of Britain and Ireland: a new field guide - Phoebe O’Brien (co-author, joint County Recorder for Co. Clare)
- Untangling the urban jungle: a foray into the extraordinary botany of our towns and cities – Dr Trevor Dines (author, BSBI trustee and creator of No Mow May)
Session 3: Supporting botanical research to help address biodiversity loss and climate change
- The Conservation Value of Ireland’s Turloughs – Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington (outgoing BSBI President)
- The importance of herbaria in the 21st Century – Dr Stuart Desjardins (Early Career Fellow, Plant Biology, University of Leicester & Editor-in-Chief, British & Irish Botany)
- Priority Plants on SSSIs in Wales – Alastair Hotchkiss (BSBI Wales Officer)
- Why botany? Why now? – Dr Sandy Knapp (NHM botanist & BSBI Trustee)
The Exhibits
Our 42 exhibits included some, e.g Brian Laney's Big Wildflower Seed Giveaway, Linda Pitkin's botanical art greeting cards, and ID resources from the Natural History Museum and the Field Studies Council, which cannot be shared with you in electronic form - you really had to be there on the day to enjoy these exhibits! But where it proved possible to upload an online version of an exhibit, we have done so, via the links below.
Guest exhibits
Annette Williamson - Vegscapes of Ceredigion
Astrid Biddle - An evaluation of the UK distribution of Common Spike-rush, Eleocharis palustris subspecies palustris using herbaria material
Astrid Biddle - Securing the future of Scarce Tufted-sedge Carex cespitosa in the UK
Henry Miller - Neophytes in London: iNaturalist data vs other sources for new Vice County plant Records
Jake Dalzell - Plant pathogens of Ireland
Jonathan Mitchley - Botanical University Challenge
Rachel Murphy - National Plant Monitoring Scheme
Roger Golding - Exploring ambiguous morphology and unusual spore behaviour in Dryopteris filix-mas, D. oreades and their hybrid D. × mantoniae
Simon Harrap - Planning a user-friendly field guide - Harrap's Wild Flowers: Second edition
Susan Medcalf - Surrey Rare Plant Register
The Team
Thank you to all our speakers, exhibitors and the team behind the Conference, and to everyone who came along and made it such a great day!
A huge thank you to BSBI volunteers Billy, Joni, Lindsay-Anne & Nicola from BSBI Events & Comms Committee; staff members Julia, Louise and Sarah; and BSBI trustee Nicola Tainton.
Thanks also to our hosts, the Natural History Museum: Sandy Knapp (NHM Botanist), Esther Murphy (Assistant to the Executive Director of Science, NHM), Mark Carine, Chris Dixon & John Hunnex who led the Herbarium tours and workshops; and the NHM Estates Team who helped us so much with setting-up.
Finally, thanks to our three session Chairs: Sandy Knapp and Nicola Tainton (BSBI trustees) and Julia Hanmer (BSBI Chief Executive).
