Fancy being an ecologist for the day? 🐞 🌱 🐦⬛
Our springtime #BioBlitz at #GlenFinglas is happening on Sat 23 May.
Activities include pond dipping, moth trapping and bird box surveys😄
Free tickets👉 buff.ly/ee2R1Dx
Wood anemones in my local wood. Often known as the windflower, the plant is named after the Greek word for wind, anemos. Some legends suggest that anemone flowers sprung up where Aphrodite’s tears fell as she wept over the death of her lover, Adonis.
The Learning team at WOLCT have taken on the BSBI 2026 100 plant challenge. First plant along the walkway is wood anemone. Did you know these delicate little plants only spread six feet over 100 years? @bsbiscotland.bsky.social
Infographic explaining species numbers that could be lost under high climate change and intensifying land use
New UKCEH-led study warns of closing 20-year window in which decisions on climate & land use will determine fate of 200+ species of native #birds, #butterflies & #plants across Britain.
But sustainable climate & land policies would save many of the species.
www.ceh.ac.uk/press/we-hav...
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Well that is the end of 4 months of daily posts covering vegetative ID and botanical terms. I hope you have found them of interest and useful. Thanks to everyone who has 'Liked', commented and shared.
I’m gathering more material but will take a break from daily posts for a while
A tiny Sea-Holly plant growing in tarmac at the base of a concrete wall, close to Southport Marine Lake. The grey of the tarmac, blue sky and rusty orange-brown staining on the concrete wall make a striking image
Two little Sea-Holly seedlings growing at the base of the concrete wall alongside Marine Drive, Southport.
It’s not every day that you spot Sea-holly as a #pavementplant!
Super early season botany on the Sefton Coast, Lancashire
Male catkins of Creeping Willow, with yellow stamens sticking out around the upright catkins to create little pompoms of colour against the background of a scrubby dune slack in March sunshine
Creeping Willow male catkins looking fine this week for #wildflowerhour.
More #shrubflowers than #treeflowers, but no less attractive for it!
🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🍂 Some beautiful spring flowers are challenging to see in the wild. For example purple saxifrage, Saxifraga oppositifolia. Green cushions with gorgeous purple flowers, but in UK and Ireland only on mountains. Likes really inaccessible sites! #BUC2026
I recall reading a news story ages ago about some climbers that had fallen 14,000 feet down the north face of Ben Nevis, a mountain that is 4,413 feet high. It was an early lesson in critical thinking and media sources!
Great article by @donnalferguson.bsky.social in today's @theguardian.com about Darwin & Henslow's plant specimens & illustrations and the fab new @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social Certificate in Botany: www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Links for this course & many others here:
bsbi.org/learn/traini...
Based in Northern Ireland?
Want to support @npms.bsky.social & help unlock plant survey sites across NI?
Then we have a fabulous volunteer opportunity for you!
Check it out:
bsbi.org/about/people...
Name That Plant is an amazing #WildFlowerID resource created by @milneorchid.bsky.social!
The website namethatplant.org is built on a photo library of >2,700 plant taxa.
We were delighted when Richard very kindly agreed to let us use those fabulous images on the new BSBI website: bsbi.org/plants!
Fantastic discovery of Herb-Paris in Sutherland - the news made the @northerntimes.co.uk and @scotsman.com 😍
www.northern-times.co.uk/news/rare-wo...
#downwithplantawarenessdisparity 😉
A smiling woman stands amongst little trees with a sweeping vista of hills and lochs in the background. Pic by Jane Watts
Congrats to @sarahwatts.bsky.social who won the Dr Cyril Hart Memorial Award from @forestrytrust.bsky.social for her research paper: "Why the present is not the key to past or future: moving beyond restricted relict habitat conditions to improve outcomes in mountain woodland restoration." 🧵 1/3
Yesterday our Botanical Skills Northern Ireland Team practiced how to use underwater drones to collect under-recorded aquatic plant specimens!
The drone will also be used for our @bsbiireland.bsky.social #AquaticPlantProject & we hope to raise money for a 2nd drone to survey Scottish lochs.
The Pine Hunters is now available to watch online 📽️ This short film tells the story of two #ecologists as race to record the last of our ancient wild #Caledonian forest fragments.
Watch for free on YouTube 👉 youtu.be/tHupftkYdZs?...
#InternationalDayofForests
Herb-paris found out of known/expected range in Sutherland. Plenty of surprises, many pleasant, to come from plant hunting.
#Lairg #Dornoch #Golspie @bsbiscotland.bsky.social @plantlifeuk.bsky.social @scotwildlife.bsky.social
Yellow Colt’s-foot (Tussilago farfara) flowers covering a bank. The combination of fine yellow ray florets, deeper yellow-orange disc florets, and purplish stems with scales instead of proper leaves is a splendid spring sight, usually where the ground has been disturbed previously.
More Colt’s-foot looking class!
Drawing of half a Holly leaf
The BSBI's mission isn't just about studying & recording our wild plants: it's also about helping everyone appreciate how gorgeous they are!
One of the many ways we're doing this is by running online botanical illustration workshops.
Check out this fab drawing by Noelin 👇 from our latest workshop!
Colt’s-foot flowers in the gutter in Edinburgh, with a small leaf appearing as well
Colt’s-foot brightening up an Edinburgh street as a #pavementplant #UrbanPlants
It is also time for #storyplants, as this plant is used to flavour Colt’s-foot rock candy by Stockleys Sweets of Oswaldtwistle. Let’s hope they don’t use plants from the ‘dog pee zone’ 😂
Oak trunk with good extent of the lichen Ricasolia amplissima in front of rocks with luxuriant Umbilicus rupestris (Navelwort) in Argyll, Scotland, on 19th March 2026.
Just stepped back to photograph this luxuriant population of Navelwort (Umbilicus rupestris) on rocks, and found that I was 'photobombed' (if that term can apply to something stationary) by a great population of the uncommon lichen Ricasolia amplissima on an oak trunk! Location: Argyll, Scotland.
I've been looking out for the Alder (Alnus glutinosa) female flower for a few weeks, and found fully open at Prestongrange Mining Museum on Sunday. A joyful sight. Next up will be Larch (Larix decidua) flowering. @bsbiscotland.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social @edinburghnats.bsky.social
Green roof of low heather plants crossed by a metal pipe grid with small weather sensors and equipment.
Repeated droughts aren’t just drying our landscapes — they’re weakening the ability of soils to lock away carbon.
New UKCEH research shows that organo-mineral soils lose carbon stability when droughts keep coming, even after they rewet. Frequency, not duration, does the most damage.
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Fantastic discovery @trisnorton.bsky.social!
Opposite-leaved Pondweed is a genuine unicorn of a plant in Scotland - confirmed at just one site in the last 60 years, on Skye. 🦄🌿
In case you were wondering, here are the answers!
Part 1: Giant Butterbur (infloresence), Bulbous Buttercup, Water Figwort
Part 2: Hedgerow Crane's-bill, Great Lettuce, Moschatel
🙂
Star like white bells of Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum) with pale green blotches on the bell tips
Spring Snowflake clump growing on the sandy margin of the River Earn at Crieff
Close up of the Spring Snowflake bells
Spring Snowflake naturalised along the river banks near Crieff. Lovely plant, definitely #SignsofSpring for #wildflowerhour, even if I spotted it a day late…
Upright basal leaves of Gagea lutea, bright green with long hooded points and ridges to back of leaf
Leaves just getting going in Mid Perthshire today
The wonderful puff of Yew Tree Pollen #LordAncrumsWood #NewBattleAbbeyCollege #SignsofSpring #WildFlowerHour @wildflowerhour.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social @bsbiscotland.bsky.social
Coltsfoot, Tussilago farfaro, in full flower now, at @scotwildlife.bsky.social's Bawsinch NR in Edinburgh. Yellow sunshine flower in the sunshine. @bsbiscotland.bsky.social
Alder female flower and male catkin at Bawsinch NR, Edinburgh
Lawson's Cypress with a profusion of male cones. Newington Cemetery, Edinburgh
Male flower of Yew, Newington Cemetery, Edinburgh
Trees in spring. Alder, Lawson's Cypress, Yew. @bsbiscotland.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social @edinburghnats.bsky.social
