Submitting Botanical Records (1 Viewer)

Does anyone send in botanical records to their county recorder?

As an avid recorder I have many records of everything from Birds to Fleas. At the end of each year I send them off to the county recorders & I pride myself in being able to access any information on most species that have been recorded by myself in the Lowestoft area.

One of the easiest ways of sending botanical records in is by recording garden escapes, otherwise known as aliens. A botanist once told me that if it is mentioned in Stace (The botanists bible for plant identification) you can record it as growing in the wild as an alien.

Plants obviously growing in gardens must not be recorded.

A good idea is to borrow a copy of your county flora to see what should be sent in. You can also see how they are laid out.

I send my records in like this : Petunia x hybrida Petunia. Lowestoft Waveney Road TM 548928 v.c.25 C.A.J. T.P. One flowering plant growing from crack in pavement.

Latin name first, followed by the Common Name Site, grid ref, vice county eg East Suffolk (v.c.25) finders name Ie C.A.Jacobs & Tony Parsons. & any notes.

I send mine in, in twos or threes because the county recorder likes to add the data as soon as he can. You can easily become “known” like this & it is always nice to see your initials in the botanical report in the annual transactions
Good Luck

Colin.

Something I keep meaning to do but have never yet got round to - really must, as I can expand hugely on what's recorded in the Flora of Northumberland in the way of naturalised trees, particularly conifers (which most UK field botanists don't have a clue about!!)

Michael

Good I am glad someone else has been motivated to get their records in. After a day in the field It can take up to five hours to write all my notes up. This is part of the day for me which I enjoy just as much as the field trips out.

Colin.

How do I get hold of a county flora? (South Yorkshire)

http://www.bsbi.org.uk/ ... ?

colinj said:

Does anyone send in botanical records to their county recorder?

As an avid recorder I have many records of everything from Birds to Fleas. At the end of each year I send them off to the county recorders & I pride myself in being able to access any information on most species that have been recorded by myself in the Lowestoft area.

One of the easiest ways of sending botanical records in is by recording garden escapes, otherwise known as aliens. A botanist once told me that if it is mentioned in Stace (The botanists bible for plant identification) you can record it as growing in the wild as an alien.

Plants obviously growing in gardens must not be recorded.

A good idea is to borrow a copy of your county flora to see what should be sent in. You can also see how they are laid out.

I send my records in like this : Petunia x hybrida Petunia. Lowestoft Waveney Road TM 548928 v.c.25 C.A.J. T.P. One flowering plant growing from crack in pavement.

Latin name first, followed by the Common Name Site, grid ref, vice county eg East Suffolk (v.c.25) finders name Ie C.A.Jacobs & Tony Parsons. & any notes.

I send mine in, in twos or threes because the county recorder likes to add the data as soon as he can. You can easily become “known” like this & it is always nice to see your initials in the botanical report in the annual transactions
Good Luck

Colin.

Click to expand...

I send in reports of fungi, though I suspect my last lot went astray. I carry a GPS receiver so that I can get an 8 digit OS reference. It beats spending an hour or two poring over a map and trying to remember where I was.

Leif

Donning my BSBI vice-county recorder's hat (vc 74, Wigtownshire), I feel I should reply to Colin.

Records (if reliable) are always welcome, but it is best to check with the recorder to find out what records they especially want.

First of all, I don't give a $&*! whether or not a garden escape is in Stace. What is important is:
a) whether the plant is correctly identified, which a lot of garden escape records are not (though Stace is very good for pointing out potential problems)
b) has the plant truly escaped or is it still given intermittent nurturing?

Plants on roadsides by cottages have often been deliberately planted and are still given the occasional attention, even if they look to have escaped. Walls are often more looked after than people think.

I agree, though, that garden escapes should not be ignored and Colin's example of Petunia x hybrida is quite an interesting one. It is one of a group I call "pavement" plants, Lobelia erinus is another, that tend to be substantially under-recorded. They seed themselves out of hanging baskets and can survive for a surprisingly long time.

If there is a local recording scheme, then the vice-county recorder may well be far more grateful for an updated list for a "square". In many vice-counties, this may be a tetrad, a 2x2 km square, but others of us argue that tetrad records are pretty useless. Personally I record 1km squares. What can be really valuable is when someone records their home patch, when they may well know the interesting plant just up an alley that would never be found by a visiting recorder, or know about the nice weed in a friend's back garden.

Grid references for individual records are important, but it is essential to get them right. I take a dim view of records of species that were apparently several miles off-shore in the Irish Sea.

Michael is undoubtedly right that conifers are too much ignored, and that applies to my own vice-county as much as elsewhere. However, again they do have to be correctly named, and records of conifers from other people do create problems for recorders if they don't know how much trust to place in the records. (And, let's face it, they are only conifers anyway!)
What is also important, as far as I am concerned, is status. Is the conifer actually regenerating from seed, or is it merely a planting?

Best source of local floras is Summerfield Books,
http://www.summerfieldbooks.com/
They are friendly, knowledgeable, and the official agents for the BSBI.
(And on checking their URL, I have just seen that the new Hebeloma book is out! A must for mycologists!)

Oh, and if someone constantly sends in records just two or three at a time, I may consider coming round and strangling them.

Alan

Leif said:

I send in reports of fungi, though I suspect my last lot went astray. I carry a GPS receiver so that I can get an 8 digit OS reference. It beats spending an hour or two poring over a map and trying to remember where I was.

Leif

Click to expand...

Yes, I've just bought a GPS receiver at last.

By next field season I'm hoping to have understood the instructions!

Alan

I save my records until about......now then submit to my local recorder at Wolverhampton Uni by email however if i consider something notable/scarce or needs verification then an email is fired off straightaway...Loz.