A hot day for wearing waders today, but pleased to find a member of the Ranunculus penicillatus complex in a river. An intriguing New Forest record. The taxonomy is complex, but it is certainly not R. penicillatus subsp. pseudofluitans. 🌿 Heat rash on my ankles, and a long drink afterwards.🧉

For #WildflowerHour: Waders on and out into the water. Spiked Water-milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum), a submerged aquatic plant sending its flowering spikes above the surface like the Lady of the Lake raising a sword from the water. #AquaticPlants #Ponds #Botany 🌿💧

Spearwort, Coral-necklace, Pennyroyal, Hampshire-purslane & other New Forest pond/wet species. But the pony is the real story. Without grazing, trampling & poaching by commoners' stock, much of this remarkable diversity would be lost. I'm grateful to everyone who helps keep those traditions alive.♥️🐎

Branched Bur-reed (Sparganium erectum) in full flower today in the New Forest. It was striking that the early-season flowers had failed to set in the cool spell we had, but the current ones are producing fruit.

Very pleased to bump into Narrow-leaved Lungwort (Pulmonaria longifolia) while surveying a stream today in the New Forest. It doesn't seem to spread from seed, so the clump will likely be there when I comeback to resurvey that section. A good marker.

Attractive sedges in the New Forest yesterday. Waders on and out in the water. Cyperus Sedge (Carex pseudocyperus) Bladder-sedge (Carex vesicaria)

Beautiful, serene Lesser Water-plantain (Baldellia ranunculoides) in the New Forest. Moments after taking this photo, I looked down and realised my movements had attracted Medicinal Leeches. At least three were climbing over each boot.

An early morning taxonomy black hole. After discussing Valeriana officinalis agg, I tried to trace how the traditional British taxa fits current POWO treatment. V. officinalis ssp. sambucifolia is now placed within V. excelsa, apparently reflecting the relationship with the higher-ploidy aggregate.

Reconnaissance visit to Old River Lea, Hackney Marshes in search of Water-crowfoots -not found- but revealed Nitella mucronata! I checked it repeatedly over lunch, partly because finding a stonewort in an urban London river seemed sufficiently improbable that I suspected wishful thinking on my part.

Three years to the day after my first visit to Braughing Meads, I revisited the Scarce Tufted-sedge (Carex cespitosa) population. The plants were very much affected by the dry spring.

@ilichenmoss2.bsky.social George Greiff in the BBC News headlines on Sunday morning. A fantastic discovery, and hopefully a way to moderate invasive (INNS) Campylopus introflexus (Heath Star Moss). Well deserved recognition for some very interesting bryological work. 🎉🙌 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A great day to stay inside, away from the heat, and do some writing. Finished work on a paper on Mediterranean temporary ponds & a charophyte. Musing on how best to promote unattractive aquatic plants & persuade people to care about our less-charismatic taxa. Fascinating Plants! #NotJustaMuddyPuddle

Collecting crowfoot -Herts river today. Fast flow, clean gravel, carp, damselflies. Beautiful at first glance. Look closer & plants festooned with Cladophora glomerata & Ulva intestinalis, while the air carries the lingering scent of laundry fragrance. A chemically altered river still looks idyllic.

This week a #WildFlowerShow for #WildflowerHour Sampling a unique non-(poorly-) flowering Crowfoot in a river, and was suddenly besieged by carp. They carve channels through the Crowfoot and thump into my waders. So far, the only UK river with this Crowfoot- doesn't look exciting without flowers.

Just over one year on from planting, the Carex cespitosa reintroduction at Fir and Pond Wood is looking extraordinary. Huge tussocks, abundant fruiting, and plants that already look completely at home in the site.

I’m beginning to suspect Nitella opaca may be the dominant Nitella of the N. flexilis/ opaca agg. in southern England. The interesting bit is why this may have been overlooked. After May, N. opaca and N. flexilis become much harder to separate reliably as the antheridia decay, detach or are lost.

Walking from one survey to another this week in the New Forest, and very pleased to see winter inundations with these lovely little plants. ♥️🌿 Shoreweed (Littorella uniflora) Small Cudweed (Logfia minima) Heath Pearlwort (Sagina subulata) Blinks (Montia fontana subsp. chondrosperma)

I love the different flavours of the Menorcan temporary ponds I visited recently. So ephemeral. These shallow peats in sandstone depressions near Ferreries were especially striking, a classic Mediterranean ephemeral wetland system, winter-wet and quietly structured by seasonal saturation.

A glorious dawn and Happy May Day all! Madrigals from the church tower and a very different setting from the beginning of the week, surveying ponds! Lots of sample sorting today, and plant vouchers cleaned and pressed. I will start after my second cup of coffee.

Really pleased to find in Menorca this week: Chara galioides in a small coastal pool. Under the lens: bright orange antheridia standing out against a relatively delicate thallus. Garish against the brilliant blue sky. Shallow, slightly brackish systems are very specialist habitats.

Creeping Willow (Salix repens) is super-miniaturised on the New Forest lawns. This is so beautiful at this time of year ♥️🌿 @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Small Adder's-tongue (Ophioglossum azoricum) today in the New Forest. About 1 cm tall! Growing in a winter-wet track depression with Lesser Spearwort (Ranunculus flammula). It has a remarkable 480 chromosomes. So cool 😎 @bsbibotany.bsky.social

#CowslipChallenge #WildflowerHour Ivinghoe Beacon We tend to think of grassland as “open”, but it has a canopy which is also seasonal. Cowslip (Primula veris) peaks before the sward closes, much as Primrose (Primula vulgaris) does before woodland leaf-out. The strategy is to beat the canopy.

Some very lovely plants I found last week in Crete. What an amazing place to botanise! Tulipa saxatilis, Muscari spreitzenhoferi, Anacamptis papilionacea, Silene colorata

I looked at an Isoetes while I was in Crete on holiday & under full inundation it forms a near-continuous marginal band. Mapping suggests ~2,500 plants rather than ~30 previous, so detectability/hydrology story. A geophyte persisting as a corm- a neat drawdown strategy. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Glorious flower-filled meadow edges in Crete, despite the strong winds, hail, and a cold snap. Bent against the wind Anemone coronaria.

Wimpole Hall on Saturday with the Cambs Bryologists. Pulvigera lyellii on Ash with two small capsule-like structures present, possibly insect egg cases. I don’t think a lichenicolous basidiomycete. A second sample with similarly positioned "pearls." Anyone have any ideas? Lacewing?

Viola odorata var. dumetorum at the woodland edges. Yesterday at the Wimpole Estate in Cambs. #WhiteFlowers #wildflowerhour @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Goat willow (Salix caprea) on the way home yesterday. The previous day’s wind has brushed the catkins to one side, and the woodland edge shows the same prevailing pattern.

Looking for an early spring break to look at flora (and other things). Holiday to use up. Spain? Andalusia? Andalusia? Any where else? Suggestions would be very welcomed.

Important Buglife work- parasiticides. Evidence mostly from rivers. Ponds may differ; additionally, when turbidity & macrophyte disturbance influence invert communities. Dogs in ponds increase turbidity & disturb sediments ↓ plants & ∴invert habitat. Likely chemical & physical disturbance.

Little Paxton Pits yesterday. Drepanocladus aduncus at pool edge- a rain fed ephemeral pond.

Little Paxton Pits and a patch of skeletal soil over gravel. Winter Stalkball (Tulostoma brumale) and Eyed Flat-backed Millipede (Nanogona polydesmoides) sitting on Didymodon Brachythecium albicans, and Syntrichia ruraliformis curled against the sunshine.

Cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) in full white bloom at Little Paxton today. Noticed marked variation, this specimen had flowers with very short anthers, and petals distinctly more pointed than others. Given how widely the species is planted, perhaps there’s been some crossing with cultivated forms.

Out looking at Charophytes for a study and popped by Purwell Ninesprings. In August there was 60% cover (pictured) and now only 10% Common Stonewort (Chara vulgaris). It looked in a terrible state even for winter- now with 80 cm of silt. It's a Groundwater-fed springhead on calcareous geology.

Windowsill-grown Pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) var. decumbens has come into flower and is so beautiful! Looking carefully for differences with var. erecta, the non-native variety. These two Mint varieties seem almost impossible to separate- bar codes seem v. difficult. Looking at morphology.

Growing Vaucheria from chalky Gault samples from yesterday’s charophyte collection day. Reproductive structures, antheridia & oogonia, are essential for identification. I’ve found that even tiny traces of filament are enough to culture material through to maturity. Getting a picture of its ecology😀

Warming induced miniaturization of plant community genome size Li et al. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/JECEMU...

A new extreme of meiotic evolution: ✔️ 𝗻𝗼 crossovers ✔️ 𝗻𝗼 gene conversion ✔️ 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹 meiosis & fertility Sex mimics clonality without becoming asexual, in the holocentric multicellular eukaryote 𝘙𝘩𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘴. more about it: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Yesterday I was with the Cambs Bryologists at the Devil's Dyke, an Anglo-Saxon causeway of chalk, sometimes reaching 10 m in height next to a deep ditch. It supports chalk grassland CG3/CG5, with CG5 occupying a holding position between grassland & scrub. Rhynchostegium megapolitanum- path edges

This week I spent the day at the Natural History Museum trying to decipher a herbarium sheet of Nitella dixonii with more labels than plant🌿 Taxonomy is basically historical detective work with dried algae & decades of marginalia= notes, scribbles and polite disagreements written all over the sheet.

Did anyone else have this poster on their bedroom wall growing up? "Chalk Grassland." This was basically one of the gateway drugs into botany- not only the plants but importantly they communities they grew in. I loved this poster & it still lives vividly in my imagination. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Winter walk from Stoke Common to Burnham Beeches ❄️ Surface water was extensive at Stoke Common & continued in a similar form as we progressed. By Farnham Common, water was no longer held and beneath the Beeches was dry & stony. I follow a route I later discovered forms part of "Shakespeare’s Way".

Gransden & Waresley Woods with Cambs bryology. Following one of the coldest nights of the winter, the ground was frozen solid, and the light stark and monochromatically bright. Plagiochila asplenioides looking very frosty.

Looking for the Drovers Tracks across the UK. Before the railways transported livestock to market, animals and birds were herded along these routes. Ponds along the way watered the animals. Do the plant signals still exist? Does anyone have a map of the routes? @amiesphilip.bsky.social

I set up a new folder for my field notes this evening. Starting my fifth year, I write about 100 each year. Part of ongoing informal evidence-gathering to refine ecological understanding, field notes provide a way to record observations that complement formal surveys. A way of thinking out loud!

Drawdown species at Wilstone Reservoir. OK, so we know about the Norfolk Bladder-moss (Physcomitrium eurystomum), Riccia cavernosa, Mudwort (Limosella aquatica)--- but what's the green filamentous stuff? It's the largest constituent of mud-pioneer species. It physically competes with the others.

Out with the Cambs Bryology Hunt on Saturday, visiting Hayley Wood. My last visit to the woods was extremely wet, and I was musing about the hydrology here and its role in supporting all the special plant species. Neckera complanata in a festive mood around an Ash stool.🤪

Many thanks to the team at Cambridge University Herbarium for my visit on Thursday, particularly Juliet. Looking at the diaries of William Nicholson to find a description of his Portugal field trip with Hugh Neville Dixon for the 1st record of Nitella dixonii . I found it earlier this year.

Just back from Madeira — cracking plants everywhere! 🌿 Intensive botanising = pure heaven. Great for ferns, fern allies, liverworts + mosses. Highlights: • Adiantum hispidulum — loved the pattern of the pseudoindusia on the leaf underside • Asplenium obovatum subsp. billotii • Vandenboschia speciosa