A super intense Pot Marigold in the garden, opening now we’ve had some rain 🌱

I studied the Solanaceae for my PhD so this montage gets a massive thumbs-up from me!

The centre of a Grass-of-Parnassus flower (Parnassia palustris) looking like something from the Crown Jewels #wildflowerhour

The adorable seed heads of Strawberry Clover (Trifolium fragiferum) on Anglesey dunes this week. Not many plants have #fruits more attractive than their flowers! #wildflowerhour

Huge thanks to Alys Fowler for such a wonderful review of 'Urban Plants' in the August edition of Gardens Illustrated (I know, I'm a little late to the party!). Thrilled you enjoyed it so much ☺️

Finally got myself a copy of ‘Urban Plants’ by @trevorthebotanist.bsky.social and cannot wait to get started on it. Urban botany really is a gift that keeps on giving and is ever changing. My Surrey suburban grass verges and pavements are suddenly full of Blue Fleabane and Hairy Finger-grass.

Hope you enjoy it Steve! And yes, I also love the constant flux of urban species - though I hope the Blue Fleabane stays around for a while.

Sea-heath (Frankenia laevis) bringing a splash of colour to the shoreline near Rhosneigr, Anglesey. Really quite rare and threatened, it’s a very lovely little thing #wildflowerhour

Been out surveying Anglesey dunes this week. Flora very stunted in the heat and drought, such as these tiny Lesser Centaury (Centaurium pulchellum), Common Restharrow (Ononis repens) and Field Gentian (Gentianella campestris) #wildflowerhour

We just published a new issue of #BritishandIrishBotany, our Open Access online journal. 7 papers for you to enjoy inc Lady's-slipper orchid reintroductions; variation in Restharrows; a new Comfrey hybrid for UK; montane plants; sea-grapes new to Europe! bsbipublicity.blogspot.com/2025/08/brit...

It’s late summer and the Asteraceae or daisy family are looking just splendid. Perfect for this week’s #WildflowerHour! See if you can find one & share your pics this Sunday evening 8-9pm using the hashtag #DaisyFamily. Happy Asteraceae hunting!

According to the City of Paris, in the last 10 years 150K trees have been planted & 45ha of parks created in the already hot city, all intended to not only improve quality-of-life today, but also help the city adapt to & manage summer heatwaves of 50℃ (122F) by 2050. Just the start. Common sense.

Rose Chafer beetles always stop me in my tracks. They’re just so big and so green and so damn metallic. Like a large lump of green metal on legs. This one crossed my path in the Dordogne last week.

This week’s challenge is #PollinatorPals! Find a flowering wild or naturalised plant with a pollinating visitor & snap away. Of course it’s not just about bees! Butterflies, moths, wasps, flies & beetles can all be #pollinators too! Share your pics for #Wildflowerhour this Sunday 8-9pm!

It’s the big day! After four years of research, writing and editing (and procrastination, terror and imposter syndrome), Endemic has now been released to the world.

This is a great account for anyone into #UrbanBotany #UrbanPlants #UrbanWildflowers. Here’s Childing Pink - rare and highly threatened in Britain - growing on a pavement in Philadelphia.

Wow! Thank you SO much @jeremybartlett.bsky.social. I’m delighted you enjoyed it, and such wonderful comments make all the years of fieldwork, research and writing worthwhile @chiffchat.bsky.social @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social

Thank you so much for your kind words, and I’m thrilled you’re enjoying Urban Plants @henk-janvdveen.bsky.social. I still can’t believe it’s now out there ‘in the wild’, and even striking a cord in other lands #Urban #UrbanPlants #UrbanWildlife #ConcreteBotany

What can you find blooming along the coast? That’s the challenge this week for #WildflowerHour! Share your pics this Sunday 8-9pm using the hashtag #ByTheSea! Happy flower hunting! 🌿🌸🌊

Back in the Dordogne for a bit (so this isn’t UK) but lovely to find the very impressive Broad-leaved Hemp-nettle (Galeopsis ladanum) growing in a ditch behind our house #Deadnettlefamily #wildflowerhour

The image for this week’s #wildflowerhour challenge post is one from W. Keble Martin’s classic wildflower guide, The Concise British Flora in Colour. Isn’t it a beauty? There’s some very lovely members of the Lamiaceae or #DeadNettlefamily can you find one for #wildflowerhour this Sunday 8-9pm?

Wow! It seem there are some extraordinary and exciting Passionflowers turning up in garden centres. They’re labelled as bog-standard P. caerulea but clearly aren’t. After my discovery of P. galbana, @devonsubtropical.bsky.social has now found P. vitifolia! Can’t wait to see it flower…

Is there a wildflower more evocative of long summer days than the beautiful Harebell?! Campanula rotundifolia is of course also known as the Scottish Bluebell. The challenge this week is to see if you can find one for #Wildflowerhour! Share your pics this Sunday 8-9pm! 💙

One of my favourite pics in ‘Urban Plants’ (just published!) is of five big chaps up to their elbows installing a tree in a tree pit. The engineering involved is marvellous. My other favourite pic is a Westie using such a street tree for its primary use, thus nicely demonstrating the dog-pee zone.

Sometimes, I’d love to be small enough to fall into the folds of a Great Mullein rosette and just stay there. Like, forever #HairyPlants #wildflowerhour

Borage (Borago officinalis) flowering on a rubbish tip, but very far from rubbish #wildflowerhour #HairyPlants

Big hit at Birdfair, Trevor - sold out on Day 1.

Love an urban broomrape 😎

Fantastic discovery James. And proof once again that @bsbibotany.bsky.social is full of extraordinary people that find extraordinary plants.

A new scheme will see botanists scouring some of Wales’ most special landscapes this summer, as they search for wild plants that haven’t been seen for decades wp.me/p8Mk4U-12vi

Thank you so much to the wonderful folk at @nhbs.bsky.social for this author interview www.nhbs.com/blog/author-... @chiffchat.bsky.social @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social

A few more inherited plants in the new garden. I’m particularly thrilled with the Madonna Lily (L. candidum) as it appeared from behind a huge Spiraea I removed (one of many - I’m on a mission!). I last knew it in my childhood garden and the scent takes me straight back to those halcyon days.

This makes my heart sing - it’s exactly what I hoped my book would do! Not staring down into drains, maybe, but searching & exploring the places we live & discovering the plants that grow alongside us #UrbanPlants #UrbanBotany #PavementPlants @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

Some are stellate, glandular, forked, simple or branched. What are? I hear you ask! Hairs! This week’s challenge is to find a hairy plant, the hirsuter the better and examine its trichomes! Post your bristly pics using the hashtag #hairyplants for #Wildflowerhour this Sunday 8-9pm

This makes my heart sing - it’s exactly what I hoped my book would do! Not staring down into drains, maybe, but searching & exploring the places we live & discovering the plants that grow alongside us #UrbanPlants #UrbanBotany #PavementPlants @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

New house, new garden, newly inherited plants to discover. Lots to keep, others to change, but this magnificent water lily is definitely staying.

It was very nice to catch up this week with the lovely colony of Anglesey Horsetail (Equisetum x robertsii) I discovered at Traeth Lligwy 25 years ago. It’s remarkably rare given its parents (E. arvense & telmateia) are as common as muck. It has a very special place in my heart #wildflowerhour

An exceptionally well-coloured Honeysuckle on the coastal path near Moelfre, Anglesey, paired beautifully with a scrambling Bush Vetch. Most of the honeysuckles I see in north Wales are a very pale-straw yellow - this hyperchromatic one really stands out #Wildflowerhour

Glad you’re enjoying it Emily. I’d recommend Highland cows for gardens too. They do the job and also entertain the neighbours. Just keep them well clear of the BBQ.

To celebrate #NationalMeadowsDay here’s a whole year in our meadow in two minutes. Meadows are crucible’s of life. We need to protect those we have left and create many more @plantlifeuk.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

To celebrate #NationalMeadowsDay here’s a whole year in our meadow in two minutes. Meadows are crucible’s of life. We need to protect those we have left and create many more @plantlifeuk.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

What? You want a tiny juvenile Speckled Bush Cricket in a hydrangea flower? Ok…here you go…

What? You want a tiny juvenile Speckled Bush Cricket in a hydrangea flower? Ok…here you go…

Not all of us enjoy the heat, but many urban plants do & it fuels their ability to spread. Passionflower sets more fruit in the heat & its seeds germinate more readily: at 21-26°C they take 1-2 weeks, but up to 10 weeks at lower temps. More in my book Urban Plants www.bloomsbury.com/uk/urban-pla...

A particularly large Silver Ragwort (Jacobaea maritima) on a patch of urban fallow near Wrexham #Wildflowerhour

Here’s something I’ve never experienced before. I was surrounded by gorse bushes and it was so hot, their seed pods were exploding all around (sound up!). You could even see the seeds falling #Wildflowerhour

If you’re going to flower, you might as well do it with gusto! A very enthusiastic Lady’s-bedstraw, Morfa Conwy #Wildflowerhour

It’s Sunday & it’s 8pm so it must be time for #wildflowerhour!🥳 Please share your pics of the wild & naturalised blooms you’ve spotted this week from across Britain & Ireland especially if they are in the grass family, the focus of this week’s challenge!

Morfa Conwy dunes were looking like a fabulous wild garden today, with huge quantities of flowering Lady’s-bedstraw, Bloody Crane’s-bill, Sea Holly, Red Valerian, Common Bird’s-foot-trefoil, White Melilot, Common Mallow and Sea Bindweed #Wildflowerhour

Me: I’d like an Ent-like bonsai tree with tiny bunches of leaves at the end of its shoots… oh, and massive fragrant bright yellow trumpet-like flowers. Flora of Iran: Coming right up…