Wales Annual Meeting 2024

Draft Programme

Excursions

  • Friday 2pm: Visit to Crymlyn Burrows SSSI to take a look at some dune habitat next door and hopefully spot some Sea Stock Matthiola sinuata and look at some of the management/ restoration work here.
  • Saturday or Sunday tbc: Field visit to Baglan (and possibly Port Talbot). A vast area of currently undeveloped brownfield with some amazing juxtapositions of species from wet and dry habitats with a sprinkling of dune species. Expect to see some of the largest amounts of Basil Thyme Clinopodium acinos, you will ever see and other species such as Hare’s foot Clover Trifolium arvense, Wall Bedstraw Galium parisiense. We should have time to take a look at Baglan dunes as well on this day.
  • Saturday or Sunday tbc: On the other day we will visit some of the most diverse coal spoil sites in the Valley’s where we should see Small Cudweed Logfia minima, Pearly Everlasting Anaphalis margaritacea, Southern Marsh Orchid Dactylorhiza praetermissa and hybrids. Also, possibly some oddities like Blue-eyed grass Sisyrinchium bermudiana and Round-leaved Wintergreen Pyrola rotundifolia.

Evening talks and workshops

  • A keynote talk on Saturday evening by Kevin McGinn (Curator of Seed Bank and Herbarium, National Botanic Garden Wales) and Laura Jones (Science Officer and Researcher, Science Centre, National Botanic Garden Wales): Collections, Research and Conservation at the Garden
  • Micheline Sheehy Skeffington (BSBI President): Presidential address
  • Lizzie Wilberforce (Head of Plantlife Cymru): Plantlife Cymru – past, present & future work in Wales 
  • Julian Woodman and Barry Stewart (County Recorders for Glamorgan): Glamorgan specials, how are they doing? an overview of plants and sites in Glamorgan
  • Workshop on Forget-me-nots Myosotis spp. by expert botanist Andy Jones
  • Other workshops tbc - watch this space!

And there's more...

  • The BSBI Wales AGM where BSBI members can vote on issues concerning the BSBI in Wales.
  • Exhibits and posters prepared by BSBI members (this is a valued part of any BSBI national meeting; you are encouraged to contribute - email Julian to find out more)
  • We hope to have both a book sales stall and a book exchange stall - watch this space!