🌿🌾 You like gardens? You like history? And games? Then rejoice, because LOBELIUS is here!
Thanks to official partners, Museum Plantin-Moretus and the Meise Botanical Garden, the players can skim through the 1581 Kruydtboeck by Matthias de l´Obel. Can you make the most beautiful early modern garden?
Late eighteenth century map of the area south of Tunbridge Wells, showing a much more extensive area of forest than is there today
in a bog on the way to Frant (i.e. in Sussex). It would have been in Waterdown Forest (in the 1793 map below), but there is no suitable habitat there any more
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Specimen of Bog myrtle collected by James Petiver from a bog just north of Frant in Sussex on 16 August 1714, and now in the Natural History Museum, London, within Petiver's Hortus siccus Anglicanus, HS152, f. 258
In 1714 James Sherard and James Petiver went on a plant-collecting tour of Sussex and Kent. This is a specimen of Myrica gale (Bog-myrtle) collected "About Tundridge Wells", which Petiver's diary shows was gathered 16 August 1714 (OS) 1/2
@bsbibotany.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social
🌿 Learning botany at home 🔓️
In our latest BJHS issue, Brad Scott explores how the Talbot family studied mosses—by collecting, drawing, and naming—showing how botanical knowledge was shaped in domestic settings and through networks, even without formal structures.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
A map of the English county of Sussex showing the distribution of Mousetail (Myosurus minimus). There are only about a dozen records in the entire county since 1995
Not so common in Sussex....
Apparently what use this site for now is posting book reviews.
The latest of Peter Dear’s The World as We Know It.
No acknowledgments allowed in press, but thanks due to @coreenanne.bsky.social and Ludmilla Jordanova.
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JAHQP...
Call for Papers:
"Technologies of Making and Knowing"
Hosted jointly at Getty, LACMA, and UCLA
Los Angeles, California, March 4 - 6, 2027
www.historiansofislamicart.org/events-and-s...
Nice. I have never seen that!
A small stream with Alder growing along it, and Birch and sallow fallen across it
The early leaves of Lesser Skullcap
A few plants of Wavy Bitter-cress with their tiny white flowers growing by the iron-rich stream
The basal leaves of Foxglove growing through some roots
Exploring a stream in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, this afternoon. Scutellaria minor (Lesser Skullcap) in a Sphagnum flush; Cardamine flexuosa (Wavy Bitter-cress) by the stream; and Digitalis purpurea (Foxglove) emerging out of the bog
#wildflowerhour
On advance access: "Colonial world-making and global knowledges at the early modern Cape of Good Hope"
by @gianamar97.bsky.social (@uvahumanities.bsky.social)
#OpenAccess
doi.org/10.1093/past...
Fully-funded AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership project:
'Cold War Socialism, Non-Alignment and Anti-Colonialism in the Yugoslav Press, 1961-1979' - British Library & University of Exeter
www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...
Deadline for student applications: 5 May (noon)
The most prolific recorders have been Francis Rose, Tom Ottley and Sue Rubinstein
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A map of the county of Sussex in the south of England, showing the number of different species of bryophytes recorded in each tetrad (2 by 2 kilometre square). There are a few totally unrecorded on the south-western coastal areas, in parts of mid-Sussex, and in the far east of the county. Those areas are also generally under-recorded and need more work. On the coastal areas and in the low Weald, a well-recorded tetrad may have just 40 to 50 different species, but up in the high Weald, 80 or more is more normal. Some tetrads in that area (and on the north slope of the South Downs) may have 130 or more different species
The current status of bryophyte recording in Sussex. 133 000 records. Few areas are now totally unrecorded, but there is still a fair bit of work to do.
The earliest records date from about 1700, but most are from the late 1980s onwards
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@bbsbryology.bsky.social @sussexwildlife.bsky.social
Fully funded collaborative RHUL-Kew PhD:
www.royalholloway.ac.uk/media/j5lbzp...
CfA: International Visiting Fellowship Programme in the History of Knowledge (Lund)
We invite early career/postdoctoral scholars to join us at LUCK during a period of one week between 2 November and 6 November, 2026.
Read more here: newhistoryofknowledge.com/2026/04/13/c...
This is one more reason why herbaria are exciting!!
A 310-year old dried pressed plant in a bound herbarium with the label "Jacea fl. albo | In Esqr Daeths grounds"
A white-flowered form of Common Knapweed from "Esqr Daeths grounds" in the Hortus Siccus Anglicanus of London apothecary James Petiver (NHM HS151 f. 136). His journal shows this was gathered at Knowlton, Kent, 22 August 1714 (OS).
#wildflowerhour @kentfieldclub.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social
📣Join us for the 3rd History of Knowledge Conference, "Decentering the History of Knowledge"! The event will take place in Utrecht on 25-27 August 2027.
📝A call for papers will follow in Fall 2026. For more information:
1) Register with "hokconference27@uu.nl"
2) Visit: www.uu.nl/en/news/thir....
P schreberi moss and text: Monitoring moss reveals widespread deposition of airborne microplastics across the UK
Close-up of Glittering woodmoss and text 52 rural sites across the UK were surveyed for microplastics
Particles in moss fronds captured under powerful microscope, plus text 94% of these sites contained microplastics above our limits of detection
The first national-scale study of its kind, led by UKCEH, has found detectable microplastics in moss at 94% of UK rural sites surveyed.
Lead author @richardkcross.bsky.social discusses the findings & importance of such surveys as production/use of plastics increases.
🔗 tinyurl.com/yc2acct4
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📖 New issue of the BJHS now out!
This issue brings together a rich set of contributions that explore how scientific knowledge is produced, communicated, and imagined across different contexts.
BSHS members enjoy full access to all articles!
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Interesting piece by friend of @manchstm.bsky.social, Prof Robert Poole: how does the Artemis II Earthset photo compare to the iconic Earthrise photo from 1968?
theconversation.com/how-artemis-...
Discover the fascinating world of Renaissance botany on 7 May at 6pm with John Gerard’s magnificent 'Herball' or 'Generall Historie of Plantes' 🪴
This is a small group workshop; booking is essential: exeter-cathedral.org.uk/whats-on/events/in-the-library-with-herball/
Well, it is a different thing for sure, but both are great
Have you seen Visconti's wonderful film of the book?
Gender, Science and Sociability in the Diary of Jane Ewbank of York (1778-1824) is published today with Boydell and Brewer! 35% off if you use the code BB135. Book link in comments ws.bsky.social @historyscience.bsky.social @womenshistnet.bsky.social @cecs-york.bsky.social @bshsnews.bsky.social
They tried to make this man an MP while he's being paid €10k a month by Hungary.
Thirty previously unpublished verses by Empedocles discovered on a papyrus from Cairo.
phys.org/news/2026-04...
A screenshot of the title and abstract page of an article in Soil Organisms journal, entitled 'Advocating for the lobe and protection of soil animals through photography: the work of Frank Ashwood and Andy Murray'.
A photograph of a round, hard-bodied mite walking among a cluster of lollipop-shaped slime mold fruiting bodies.
Want to start doing soil animal macrophotography? Or fancy a rare glimpse into mine and @mesofauna.bsky.social's minds?
An article has just dropped in @soilorganismsj.bsky.social, showcasing mine and Andy's love for documenting soil biodiversity! 🧪🪱
Open Access: soil-organisms.org/SO/article/v...
