My niece filmed this water shrew in Inverkirkaig , Assynt. I've never seen one of these what little beauty it is.

Cotoneaster integrifolius at a Norwich park & ride. Pretty distinctive habit and dull crimson fruit

Long-spiked Glasswort Salicornia dolichostachya. Very well named. Exceedingly long and tapered spikes. Seen fairly plentifully at Gutner Point and North Common. Hayling Island, Hampshire today. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Yellow Glasswort Salicornia fragilis was found sparingly on the gravely lower edges of the saltmarsh at Gutner Point, Hayling Island, Hampshire. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Lovely surprise find today (by @nickaston.bsky.social) on the beach at Northney, Hayling Island, Hampshire while we were Salicornia hunting. A huge heap of washed-up Dwarf Eelgrass Zostera noltei. Blunt, notched leaf tips. And flowers to boot! @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Our annual membership special offer opens today! Join us this month & you'll enjoy 15 months of membership benefits for the price of 12. Those benefits are so numerous & fabulous you'll have to head over here to see them all: bsbipublicity.blogspot.com/2025/10/bsbi... Then join us! bsbi.org/join-us

Wow, even better value than before! Lots of benefits to be had...our superb magazine, offers on great publications, and first dibs at field events, to name a few - and you'll be really helping the conservation of wild plants too.

Sphagnum balticum taken yesterday in a wetland nature reserve #moss #bryophyte

Wavy Hair-grass, Avenella flexuosa. Photos taken at same place, 3 months apart, July (left) & September (right). Up to 80cm. Tufted. Dark, smooth, bristle-like leaves. Blunt ligules, 0.5-3mm. Loose, open panicles, up to 15cm long. Crinkled branches. 2-flowered spikelets.

A lovely clump of Stark White Spider Orchids (Caladenia longicauda subsp eminens) dancing in the breeze. Seen at Kojonup, Western Australia #orchids #ozflora #wildoz #nativeplants #bloomscrolling #nature

Solanum revealed 2 species: nigrum & nitidibaccatum, Black & Green Nightshade. Apart from the obvious berry colour, it always remained possible that Green Nightshade could have been unripe berries. Green= sepal lobes expand as the berries mature Black= stays the same

OK, so the Cambs Fenland drains had a Water-plantain. The leaves had perished in the summer, & it may have been either A. plantago-aquatica or A. lanceolatum. Luckily, it was fruiting. A) A. plantago-aquatica= achenes had a single furrow on the back. B) A. lanceolatum= two furrows. Answer is A.

An interesting fern from today's wander in Throckley Dene - Dryopteris borreri morph. foliosum. A great big untidy looking thing with crimped pinnules. Certainly stood out! #ferns

Asplenium trichomanes subsp. pachyrachis is the rarest subspecies of maidenhair spleenwort found growing out of damp limestone with high humidity levels. Identified by its lobed leaves from which it gets its English name, lobed maidenhair spleenwort. This one was tucked away in the Wye Valley.

Sphagnum squarrosum in a swampy woodland pond in the New Forest on Monday. Such a pretty moss!

Marginal veins of Nymphaea alba (left) and Nymphaea candida (right) for comparison.. Veins of candida join to form closed loops, those of alba end at the leaf edge. Of course there’s a hybrid too, which is common where they meet.

Camouflage 2: Grey/Dark Dagger, Acronicta psi/tridens. Wide range of larval food plants including Hawthorn and Blackthorn

#ColorADay #PinkMonday #MacroMonday @trailwalker13.bsky.social

Sphagnum pulchrum and majus #moss #bryophyte

Amanita muscaria - Fly Agaric. 🍄 #FungiFriday #FungiFriends

The Scarletinas are here! Delicious! Neoboletus praestigiator - Scarletina Bolete. #FungiFriends #FungiFriday

Amanita rubescens - The Blusher. #FungiFriends

Found more Favolaschia claudopus - Orange Porecap in a different woodland this afternoon. It’s definitely spreading. #FungiFriends #FungiFriday

Himalayan Knotweed, Persicaria wallichii. Up to 180cm. Smooth stem. Leaves up to 20cm, veins can be reddish. Leaf base cordate or truncate. White or pinkish flowers, 5 lobed, in loose leafy inflorescence.

Today I offer a reminder of the word ‘forswunk’ (13th century): exhausted from too much work. To be ‘foreswunk’ (my own version) is to be exhausted before you even begin.

Chaps! Do yourself a favour and get a blood test done to have your PSA levels checked. I did last month and my elevated levels triggered off a scan, biopsy and prostate cancer diagnosis. The good news is that is a tiny amount, confined and not aggressive. Seems a good time to urge others to check!

We have been described as "THE BEST NGO THAT NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT" Please help by following us & reposting!!!

I have been known to enjoy a good snerdle....

Word of the Day is ‘snerdle’ (19th century): to stay warm and still beneath the covers for as long as humanly possible.

be like debris-carrying lacewing larvae #sciart #invertebrates

Autumn - a Jay burying acorns. Note: 1 The bird tests the ground to find just the right spot. 2 Leaves are used to plug (& mark?) the site. 3 The full gular pouch (with an acorn) on arrival & empty on departure. Shame the camera angle wasn't just a little lower - them's the breaks. Will try harder.

Just wow 😵‍💫 #MolluscMonday

Just woke up from a social media pause and the first thing I see is an incredible footage of a sperm whale casually cruising with a giant squid in its mouth ?? 🦑 🌊 🌿

Trying for spectacular but at least I had had fun with #Seedheads & #Seeds. Salad Burnet I need to study more. Here the flowers on the same day as a seeded head found. @wildflowerhour.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social @botanybeck.bsky.social @bsbiireland.bsky.social @plantlifeuk.bsky.social

Very autumnal colour of Agrimony as it goes to seed. #WildflowerHour #SeedHeads

We invite all #BSBImembers & supporters to take part in our 2025 survey & help inform our future direction! All responders receive a 60% discount code on our eBooks until the end of September & there's a prize draw to win a year's free membership. Start the survey: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Fragrant Agrimony Agrimonia procera - living up to its scientific name but not so much its common name. Lovely tall but largely unscented plants beside a footpath at Egton, NE Yorkshire. Reflexed lower spines on the fruit. #wildflowerhour

Yesterday, we visited @ulsterwildlife.bsky.social 's working farm reserve in Fermanagh with the NIEA Habitats team, carefully exploring around the Marsh Fritillary caterpillar webs in the grasslands, and combing the woods for Yellow Birds Nest Orchid.

Almond Willow Salix triandra flowering again. Cause for a closer look: Shiny mid-green lanceolate leaves, angled twigs, marzipan-scented bark and three anthers per flower

Possibly the finest specimen of Pseudoboletus parasiticus - Parasitic Bolete I have ever found. What an absolute beauty. Growing from Scleroderma citrinum - Common Earthball. 🍄📷 #FungiFriends #MushroomMonday

What's the difference between dominance and epistasis? Two physically distinct mutations in a gene interact such that the het is identical to one of the homozygotes. If I define the gene as a locus, we call this dominance. If I define each bp as a locus, we call this epistasis.

Fool's Parsley with its long bracts underneath the flowers, from a patch of rough grass by the quay at Cargreen Cornwall yesterday. Aethusa cynapium

That’s it for the BMS 2025 recording period. Thank you to everyone who has taken part. You can enter your species list on line at bigmeadowsearch.co.uk/submit or you can send to me on [email protected] The posts will stop popping up on a daily basis and will become more sporadic.

Tufted Vetch, Vicia cracca. Up to 200cm, scrambling. Hairy. 5-12 pairs of leaflets. Branched tendrils. Flowers bluish-mauve, up to 12mm long with 10-40 forming the inflorescence. Pods up to 25mm and glabrous

Penultimate day of BMS 2025 & a lovely wander round fabulous, varied habitats nr Llansadwrn. Swathes of Devil’s-bit Scabious but wrong time of year to see the Marsh Fritillaries. If you fancy waking up to this beautiful spot on your holidays, check out understarryskies.co.uk

Not ready to stop counting butterflies yet? Good news! You can help butterflies and moths all year round by recording your sightings through the iRecord Butterflies app 👉 https://butterfly-conservation.org/our-work/recording-and-monitoring/irecord-butterflies 📷: Green-veined White - Iain H Leach

Skullcap, Scutellaria galericulata (1 of 2). Up to 50cm. Hairy. Leaves up to 7cm, heart-shaped base, weakly toothed, wrinkled and with blunt tip. Bright bluish-purple, paired flowers at leaf bases. Corolla up to 20mm, curved upward from the base

Some rather large examples of Red Goosefoot (Oxybasis rubra) on today's #urbanflora ramble. Common elsewhere, this one is actually on the Rare Plant Register for VC67! 🌱

Looking very liquorice-like - a massive swarm of the fungi Black Bulgar (Bulgaria inquinans) on fallen logs today - Sussex #FungiFriday #fungifriends #fungi