🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Yew (Taxus baccata) is one of the 3 native conifers in the UK. Some are thousands of years old. The one pictured is in a churchyard that was also sacred pre-Christian. Mostly separate male & female trees. First formal description by Linnaeus 1753. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 If you are in Reading on 19 August, why not spend the afternoon watching the final of Botanical University Challenge live at the university? Immerse yourself in the atmosphere and be amazed at the plant knowledge of the students. QR code for free tickets. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Pollen, male gametophyte, on a plant stigma can be recognised as compatible. Allowed to germinate so pollen tube grows downwards through style tissue to reach ovules. Male and female gametes fuse. Start development of seed embryo and supporting tissues. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Moonwort looks strange but is a small fern (Botrychium lunaria, family Ophioglossaceae). Strong connection with its mycorrhizal fungus. Lives mostly underground, occasionally putting up a leaf. Found across northern and temperate southern hemisphere. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Sichuan pepper, spice from dried fruits of plants in genus Zanthoxylum. Same family as citrus, Skimmia and Boronia megastigma. It gives tingling, numbing effect when eaten in food. Not related to chilli peppers or black pepper. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Botanical terminology - names for features of plants. Epicalyx: Extra calyx of small bract-like leaflets (episepals) below the true calyx (sepals). Extra cute little frill beneath a flower in some families. Often most easily seen after flower has gone over and fruit is forming. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🧪🖌🐡 #BUC2026 Coal balls! From Carboniferous period, made with Ca & Mg-rich minerals that kept plant parts connected and some cells visible in the fossils. Really useful for paleobotanists. Read about one local UK collection. www.kirklees.gov.uk/beta/museums...

I like the idea of a civil orange, I don’t imagine they are inherently rude fruit…

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Easy mistake to make, but what are Seville oranges? Sour, not sweet fruit, high in pectin and essential oils. Originates SE Asia. Culinary use for marmalade, duck à l'orange, chutney, mämmi; essential oil in Curaçao liqueur, Cointreau. Tree used as rootstock for sweet oranges. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Hyssop, Mint family Lamiaceae, small woody shrub. Pink, blue or white fragrant flowers. Leaves have minty, slightly bitter, taste. Long history of culinary use - za'atar, Chartreuse liqueur, absinthe. Also folk medicine. Originally around Mediterranean & eastwards to Caspian Sea #BUC2026

'Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales seeks a new Head of Botany to lead an experienced curatorial team driving forward innovative research and public engagement programmes' #museums #museumjobs www.workincharities.co.uk/job/head-of-...

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Attractive floral print summer dress in major UK store. But look closer; are those yellow flowers really buttercups? No! What would you really name them? #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Carrots! Sweet tap roots now typically orange, but also other shades of purple, red, yellow. Original colour white (and of wild carrots). Biennial plants, storing food one year to flower quickly in second. Origin in Central Asia. Vegetable in sweet and savory foods. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Combination plants & fungi (& bacteria) - ginger beer! Flavour from ginger volatile plant sesquiterpenes. Originally brewed by wild yeast & bacteria with added sugar, and alcoholic. Now alcohol often removed, or made sweet & carbonated. Read labels! But always ginger flavour!! #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Remember that the Botanical University Challenge crowdfunder is still live. Supporting students from UK and Ireland to attend the 4th Student Botany Festival at University of Reading this August. #BUC2026 Follow QR code or go to reading.hubbub.net/p/botanicalu...

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Ginger plant family also includes the plants that give the spice cardamom from their seed pods. Several species in genera Elettaria and Amomum. Especially Elettaria cardamomum, grown from India to Malaysia. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Don't forget that the Botanical University Crowdfunder #BUC2026 runs into July. Take a look at it and see how it fills a space in UK and Irish botanical education. Use the QR code or reading.hubbub.net/p/botanicalu...

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Final of Botanical University Challenge 2026 #BUC2026 is live at University of Reading 19 August. Tickets are free. If you want one, follow QR code or go to link on botanicaluniversitychallenge.co.uk

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Another plant in the Ginger Family, the Siam or Summer tulip, Curcuma alismatifolia. This perennial is valued for its attractive flowers, rather than for eating. Originates in the area of Laos/Northern Thailand/Cambodia. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Another spice from the Ginger plant family. Myoga, Japanese ginger, young shoots and flower buds are eaten whole or as a garnish. Originates in Japan, China and region, but now grown commercially for export in New Zealand and Australia as well. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🧪🖌🐡 How do colours of plants relate to photosynthesis? Main light-absorbing chemical, chlorophyll, does not capture green light - so it is still there for us to see plants as green. Other chemicals catch green - so we can see blue and red flower petals. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 More spices from the Ginger plant family. Galangal, Thai ginger from SE Asia originally. Another flavouring for food. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🐡 What is a diaspora? Looks like lots of things. Tumbleweed in Westerns, strawberries at Wimbledon, ash tree keys spinning down in autumn, ants carrying juicy seeds to their nests ... Any seed and surroundings that aid its dispersal. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🧪🐡 Unexpected bits of plants. Leaves that are actually stems! Cladodes. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🐡🖌️ Colours we see around us are from the chemicals in plants that absorb light. One of the more unusual colours is blue. Two really showing this are blue-coloured sweetcorn and potatoes! #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🐡🖌️ The spice turmeric, from plant Curcuma longa in Ginger family, has its intense orange colour from polyphenols, especially curcumin. This is used as flavouring and colouring in foods, cheese, butter, cosmetics. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🐡🖌️The Ginger plant family, Zingiberaceae, provides other spices in addition to ginger. Black cardamom, used like green cardamom, but has different flavour. Seed pods have a strong, camphor-like flavour, often with a smoky character from drying over fire. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🧪🐡🖌️ 2026 final Botanical University Challenge #BUC2026 is in a large lecture theatre at University of Reading. Come and see the amazing teams in person on 19 August! Tickets now available. QR code or botanicaluniversitychallenge.co.uk

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🖌️🐡What is a berry? Botanically, fleshy fruit from single flower with 1 ovary. So, grape, currant, tomato, cucumber, banana & pepper (Capsicum) fruits are botanical berries. However, for culinary use, berries are small, pulpy, and often edible fruit - like strawberries, blackberries! #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🐡 Lettuce, mostly grown for summer leaves to eat fresh or cooked. Now major horticultural crop. Also varieties for oil from seeds and others with long edible stems. Many leaf shapes and colours. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🐡 Dill, herbs related to celery, carrots. Leaves, stems & seeds used for flavouring in cookery, pickles. Originates North Africa & Middle East. Loves hot, sunny weather. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🧪🐡 Many plants have mutually beneficial, relationships with other organisms. Frankia alni filamentous bacteria make ammonia, adding hydrogen to nitrogen gas from atmosphere. Cosy home in Alder roots, sugar supply. Tree gets exclusive fertiliser source. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🧪🐡The spice cinnamon is aromatic oils in tree bark & leaves of some species within Family Lauraceae, Genus Cinnamomum. Trees grow in China, SE Asia but traded around the world. The chemicals cinnamaldehyde and eugenol are main reason for flavour. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴Borage, Borago officinalis, large bristly plant with vivid blue flowers now in UK & Ireland. The flowers were traditionally used to to decorate a gin-based fruit cocktail, Pimm's No. 1 Cup. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴 Evolution of Trees. Fascinating – fossils, DNA, physiology, climate change. Speakers Jenny McElwain Trinity College Dublin, Christopher Berry Cardiff Uni & Bill Baker Kew. Teams from all in Botanical University Challenge. Prof McElwain asked questions 2025. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Love plants and based in Ireland ☘️? We are always looking for volunteers here too (botanical or otherwise!) Get in touch at bsbi.org/about/people... - we would love to hear from you 😊 @bsbibotany.bsky.social #VolunteerWeek @bucbotany.bsky.social #botany #irishplants

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴 Beautiful plant flowering now, pasqueflower, Pulsatilla vulgaris, now grows only in a few unimproved chalk & limestone grasslands in England, not elsewhere in UK or Ireland. Perennial plant but numbers declining. More common in rest of Europe - and in gardens! #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️Ginger originates from maritime SE Asia. The current plant does not exist in the wild. Domesticated and adapted by people over at least 7000 years. First spread around the Pacific, and later to Middle East, Europe and the Americas. Now used in so many cuisines worldwide. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️Purple saxifrage, common in high arctic and high mountains just about makes it into UK and Ireland. Spring flowers, from March to May. #BUC2026

anyone in the BUC community with good Campylopus ID skill interested in looking at Bermuda’s endemic one? It is pretty much unstudied.

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️Not often moss & fungus feature on BBC News. Heath-star moss, Campylopus introflexus & fungus Bryoscyphus granulosus that causes moss to die back. Work by group including George Greiff, who competed in the earliest Botanical University Challenges! #BUC2026 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) inspired 1883 wallpaper design by May Morris, daughter of William & Jane Morris. Popular design still available today. The design, with some writing about printing it, is on the left, and the finished wallpaper on the right. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️ News about the Botanical University Challenge Crowdfunder! It has been extended into July - so if you were about to get round to donating, you havn't missed it! See what it is about via QR code or: reading.hubbub.net/p/botanicalu...

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️Another plant ID question. Name the plant that has the pale yellow flowers at the top of the tree. It is growing in the west of England. #BUC2026 Only 1 day left on the Botanical University Challenge crowdfunder. To support us through it - do it now! reading.hubbub.net/p/botanicalu...

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️ Azolla, fern that lives on water. Individual plants look lovely, but can spread to cover lakes, canals and so block light from other plants. #BUC2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️Only 4 days to go on the BUC Crowdfunder reading.hubbub.net/p/botanicalu... ! Paeonies, lovely late-spring garden flowers in temperate region like UK & Ireland. Unusual taxonomy - only one genus in the family. #BUC2026

Another question from a past Botanical University Challenge Contest. Who wrote the book 'Finding the Mother Tree'? #BUC2026 botanicaluniversitychallenge.co.uk/the-thymes/

About 10% of flowering plant species are orchids (family Orchidaceae). Spectacular wild flowers, surprisingly common in urban UK. The around 28,000 species are rarely foods (vanilla, salep) but valuable in horticulture for flowers. #BUC2026 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️Botanical University Challenge #BUC2026 like to try different social media. In latest issue newsletter, read students' experiences with Advent Botany on TikTok! botanicaluniversitychallenge.co.uk/the-thymes/

🌱🌾🌎🌍🌺🌳🌿🐝🪳🌴🖌️🧬🐡 Plants are sources of complex chemicals that can be used as medicines for humans. Vincristine (Oncovin) can be used in some cancer therapies. Now made synthetically, it was initially extracted from Madagascar periwinkle, Catharanthus roseus. #BUC2026