Last call for Spring Conferences
Everyone is very welcome to the BSBI Spring Conference this Saturday 26 March. It includes talks on the botanical highlights of the fens, the urban flora, rare arable plants, the conservation of Oblong Woodsia, separating Whitlow-grass species and finishes with a Question & Answer session where you can put questions on any botanical or BSBI-related topic to a panel. Click to book this online event: BSBI Spring Conference.
The Irish Spring Conference will be a week later on Saturday 2 April. Again, everyone is very welcome, regardless of which side of the Irish Channel they are on! Highlights include talks on the Bord na Móna Peatlands, how to identify non-native Alders and how might the Strawberry-tree have come to Ireland. Booking essential: Irish Spring Conference.
Jim McIntosh, BSBI Senior Country Officer
Stace 4 names in the DDb
The taxonomy used in BSBI’s Distribution Database (DDb) is now consistent with the accepted names used in edition 4 of Stace’s New Flora of the British Isles. An update for MapMate is planned but, meanwhile, data imported from MapMate will still link seamlessly to the updated DDb taxa.
Please let me know about any errors or omissions.
I’m grateful for the extensive preliminary work by Mick Crawley and Martin Rand that allowed the Database update to proceed relatively painlessly.
Tom Humphrey, BSBI Database Officer
British & Irish Botany: issue 4.1 published
The February 2022 issue of British & Irish Botany, BSBI’s online, Open Access scientific journal, features six papers: Ivor Rees describes a new subspecies within the Limonium binervosum aggregate from an Anglesey saltmarsh; Richard Lansdown et al. report on two species of Wolffia new to Britain; there are two papers by Mike Wilcox - one on Scentless Mayweed and one on Sea Couch and coastal hybrid couch grasses in Scotland; David Trudgill mined the BSBI Distribution Database for records of 20 species of orchid recorded in Scotland since 1950 to analyse the extent of their decline; and Clive Stace reported on subspecies of Vulpia geniculata.
Louise Marsh, BSBI Communications Officer
BSBI Handbook on Alchemilla
Are you a BSBI member and hoping to claim your exclusive members’ discount on the latest title in the series of BSBI Handbooks, (No.24) Alchemilla: Lady’s-mantles of Britain and Ireland by Mark Lynes? If so, you’ll need to hurry because the offer closes on 31st March and then the book will be published in April. It will retail at £20 but members will pay only £12.50 / €14.75 (excl. P&P). Further information about the Handbook and how to claim the discount for members can be found here.
Louise Marsh, BSBI Communications Officer
Access to the membership list for BSBI volunteers
As mentioned in the previous issue of Recorder eNewsletter, if as a BSBI volunteer you need access to members’ contact details in your area for a specific purpose covered in our Data Handling Policy, we can arrange this. Please get in touch with Gwynn Ellis (Gwynn.Ellis@bsbi.org) or myself. We will send you a short form to sign to confirm you will follow our Privacy and Data Handling Policy. Then we can provide you with the relevant members' contact details every quarter, or as a one-off, if you prefer.
Julia Hanmer, BSBI Chief Executive
National Plant Monitoring Scheme
With the botanical field season starting soon, this is the ideal time to join the growing ranks of NPMS surveyors and see if there is a square available near you. 1,923 squares have been allocated so far to 1,682 volunteers, who have already submitted 187,135 records. These records help to guide policy-makers – in 2019, NPMS data contributed to the UK’s first ever volunteer-based habitat quality indicators. If you’d like to find out more about the NPMS and how you can get involved this year, please visit www.npms.org.uk
Louise Marsh, BSBI Communications Officer