What #EYABeauty lies on the inside of this unassuming folder? We're showing off Elsie Wakefield's fungi illustrations today 🍄 Wakefield became Head of Mycology at Kew Gardens in 1915 and our Archives hold her personal papers collection, which includes letters, illustrations and photographs. #KewLA

Superb result of lots of hard conservation work by my mate Tim Pankhurst at Plantlife, plus many others. For such a rare orchid to become *less threatened* is nothing short of phenomenal. Bravo to everyone involved! @plantlifeuk.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Also at #BIBConf25, a panel discussion on Artificial Intelligence: the good, the bad & how best to approach it as a botanical community. On the panel: @trevorthebotanist.bsky.social; Olaf Kranse (Univ Cambridge); Alice Kershaw @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social Stuart Desjardins (Univ. Leicester)

Wonderful to see @jackdashby.bsky.social discussing his book, 'Nature's Memory' @linneansociety.bsky.social last evening!

Best time to join the growing ranks of #BSBImembers? In October to get 15 months of benefits for price of 12: that's when 100s of people inc @markavery.bsky.social & @alunsalt.bsky.social joined! 2nd best time? In November, to enjoy 14 months of benefits: bsbipublicity.blogspot.com/2025/10/bsbi...

New #GBRedList for vascular plants is published today by a team led by @bsbibotany.bsky.social with partners @naturalengland.bsky.social @ukceh.bsky.social @naturescot.bsky.social @natreswales.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social @plantlifeintl.bsky.social @rbgkew.bsky.social @thebotanics.bsky.social

Huge thanks to @adamvaughan.bsky.social for his excellent article in today's @thetimes.com about #GBRedList. Wild plants inc Common Restharrow, Common Rock-rose & Common Milkwort all now classed as Vulnerable - so no longer common! Download the new Red List: britishandirishbotany.org/index.php/bi...

Major revision of #GBRedList of plants published today shows 25% of our native & archaeophyte flora threatened with extinction. Many iconic widespread species classified as threatened for first time including Betony, Marsh Marigold, Devil’s-bit Scabious and Harebell. Another wake-up call for action!

The platform formerly known as Twitter may be horrible, but it is still shaping policy. So were we all wrong to leave?

Many (and belated!) Thanks to the #NorfolkFloraGroup and @jo-the-botanist.bsky.social for a great day in the field! Looking forward to the next field meeting (and more surveying!) 🥰🌱🌿

Excited to see the new data portal from @rbgkew.bsky.social launched today! Find out more below! #biodiversity #naturalhistorycollections #collectionsdata #naturalsciencecollections #botany #researchdata

Digitisation means global access. What was once locked in cabinets is now open to researchers, students, artists, gardeners - anyone, anywhere 🌐

Through the power of digitisation, millions of Kew's plant and fungal specimens have stepped out of the archives and into the hands of the world 🌿 Explore the new Data Portal yourself and uncover centuries of botanical history - now just a click away! www.kew.org/read-and-wat...

Procumbent Pearlwort (Sagina procumbens) in its very unnatural natural habitat. We need a term for these road-dwellers - tarmacophytes maybe? #UrbanPlants #PavementPlants @bsbibotany.bsky.social

In today's @theguardian.com country diary, I'm celebrating pavement plants and a #Hitchin speciality with my friends in Happy... #countrydiary #naturewriting

🛟 IASSIST members, along with members from organisations like RDAP and the Data Curation Network, initiated the Data Rescue Project to coordinate efforts in preserving USA federal data at risk. Data have already been rescued from various agencies. #datarescue iassistdata.org/blog/2025/02...

And the importance of data and citizen science here from @bsbibotany.bsky.social - contributing to the broader understanding of #biodiversity #plantdiversity

In these times, Open Data are more crucial than ever. Datasets and websites in the US are unfortunately 'going dark' including medical and health datasets and climate change. #digitalpreservation #opendata www.axios.com/2025/01/31/h...

The anonymous pamphlet 'Directions for Preserving Animals, and Parts of Animals, for Examination' was probably written by John Hunter in the 18th century, and advises that the bills of birds should be preserved separately in spirits, while the legs can be dried #Animals

We know, we know, we're getting ahead of ourselves again, but... These little penguins have been exploring the archives. Look at all the other penguins! Things took a sinister turn however when they came across a book instructing on the preservation of birds 🤯 #EYAAnimals #ExploreYourArchive

Our archive is #YourArchive. We have digital records, manuscripts, ephemera, rare books, artworks, and artefacts on the history and heritage of the university. Everyone is welcome to visit: you don't need to be a 'serious researcher' to come to the archives ☺️ #EYAYourArchive #ExploreYourArchive

蛇年快乐 Happy New Year of the Snake 2025

Thanks to @pocketwildingie.bsky.social for promoting the fabulous Basal Project: basalproject.org.uk It's a great resource for anyone looking to identify wild plants from their juvenile leaves/ basal rosettes. The site was set up by @richardmabbutt.bsky.social, one of our amazing #BSBImembers.

Only 4 days left if you want to apply for a BSBI grant! We have Training Grants (<£250) so you can take a short #WildFlowerID course; Plant Study Grants (<£1K) for undergrads; Science & Research Grants (<£1K) aimed at PhD students or amateur researchers. bsbi.org/grants Don't miss out, apply ASAP!

All this time and money wasted on AI development when it could be spent making a thermos that doesn’t give tea a metallic taste

Looking forward to the upcoming Symposium @linneansociety.bsky.social #naturalhistory #historyofscience members.linnean.org/events/67605...

Edward Joseph Lowe's illustrations of ferns, from Ferns: British and Exotic (1856-1860) - #biologicalillustration #naturalhistory #ferns #botany www.flickr.com/photos/vinta...

📢 Calling all historians and researchers! The Women's History Network is now accepting abstracts for its 33rd Annual Conference, themed "Hidden in Plain Sight: Women in Archives, Libraries, Museums, and Personal Collections." More info: womenshistorynetwork.org/whn-annual-c... #WomensHistory #GLAM

This #BlueMonday, a few 'blue' pages from one of our most popular books 'Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions' (1843) by pioneering photographer Anna Atkins. Also watch our librarian, Will Beharrell's @willbeharrell.bsky.social, talk on the Society’s copy youtu.be/bTK_YU75Wbc

Pleased to have finally joined @historyscience.bsky.social as a member! Looking forward to participating in the Society!

Thrilled to have Prof Sachiko Kusukawa talking us through Leonhard Fuchs's History of Plants - our first 2025 presentation of Linnean Lens. A recording will be available if you miss it. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel to be alerted to the upload here: www.youtube.com/linneansociety

Interested in Botanical spirals but couldn’t attend my lecture @linneansociety.bsky.social Don’t worry you can now watch it on YouTube! 👇👇👇 The talk includes an overview of our recent paper on fern fiddleheads @currentbiology.bsky.social youtu.be/WLHDnjwcPlc?...

We're getting a bit ahead of ourselves but just cannot wait to complete the first part of #ExploreYourArchive week, looking at #tiny things through microscopes in our collections, from a classic golden St George's engraved microscope to wood-encased 1940s & more utilitarian-looking 1980s 'scopes 🔬

We also went #huge with an anatomical textbook from 1747 featuring rhinoceros Clara in the background. Medical textbooks were often large to be able to show the illustrated details accurately. Poor Clara was exhibited around Europe, and died in London in 1758 #EYAHuge #ExploreYourArchive

Medical history often focuses on great individuals, but there are so many unsung #heroes whose work is essential, yet often overshadowed. We catalogued our #HistNursing collections last year funded by #ArchivesRevealed - they're a treasure trove of #nursing heroes #EYA #ExploreYourArchive #EYAHeroes

Today's ornithology fact - the world's smallest bird of prey (a falconet) is smaller than the world's largest hummingbird (Giant Hummingbird) 🧪🪶

Frontispiece of 'Osteologia' (1680), with a human skeleton checking in the inhabitants of the book: "Tortoise... check; on you go, quick now" (Rijksmuseum, hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001...) #EarlyModern 🐢

The Oxford Internet Institute has a ton of featured research on life online: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/ They also run a degree program on Social Science of the Internet, so if you look around in the ORA (ora.ox.ac.uk ) you'll be able to find some research from grad students in there.

Hello World! I am now here on Bluesky! I am a sociologist of data, research infrastructures and scholarly communication, a data manager and biologist! I also love art, literature and going on long walks!