Extraordinary beauty this morning in Braemar. The Morrone birkwood is high enough to retain the freezing fog longer into the day. And then, even after the fog clears and the hillsides warm up, the Braemar frost hollow keeps the woodland cold.

Greater tussock-sedge forming strange colemnular structures by the shore on Seil Island. One even had a rowan tree growing out of it.

Not sure whether to take part in #NewYearPlantHunt? Worrying that your #WildFlowerID skills won't be up to scratch? No problem: just use one of our spotter sheets for your area: bsbi.org/take-part/ac... Download & print it, or find all the spotter sheet plants on a ticklist on the #BSBIRecordingApp!

My #PlantoftheYear for 2025 is the fabulous Tufted Saxifrage, one of our rarest arctic-alpines. I helped survey the known sites for this plant in Scotland for @plantlifeuk.bsky.social - this beauty was in a grotty gully just under the summit of Ben Nevis 😍 Merry Christmas everyone! #wildflowerhour

Day 24 of my botanical #adventcalendar celebrates the people that have helped make my 2025 such a special year! From beginners to renowned experts, botanists aged 5 to 85, I'm so grateful to have shared my passion with so many inspiring people. Tune in tomorrow to find out my Plant of the Year!

Day 23 of my botanical #adventcalendar is the diminutive yet delightful Alpine Gentian - an extremely rare alpine, perhaps now only found on Ben Lawers, and assessed as Endangered on the new #GBRedList Is there a better flower colour than gentian blue? No, there is not... #wildflowerhour

Many thanks to everyone who shared pix of wild & naturalised plants to brighten up the #WinterSolstice! Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, then we have one more #WildFlowerHour before the #NewYearPlantHunt. And then days keep on getting longer until it's Spring! @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

It's not every day you find a new native species for Scotland! Day 22 of my botanical #adventcalendar is Shiny Glasswort - a nationally rare plant never recorded in Scotland before Growing in a salt pan on the Forth Estuary - branching pattern, colour and flower size the ID clues #wildflowerhour

Two great winter botanical skills workshops on offer in Jan & Feb 2026 from the wonderful West Central Scotland Botany Network! Winter Twig and Conifer ID workshops - book your place now and kickstart your New Year with some botanical brilliance 😍 @bsbibotany.bsky.social @plantlifeuk.bsky.social

Day 21 of my botanical #adventcalendar is the amazing Blue Heath, which grows on just a handful of Scottish mountains In flower the giant pink bells are unmistakeable, but the leaves look very similar to Mountain Crowberry, making it surprisingly hard to find! A truly special plant #wildflowerhour

Botanical #adventcalendar Day 20 - the fabulous Alpine Saxifrage, one of my favourite arctic-alpines, on Ben Lawers. Nationally scarce and now Near Threatened on #GBRedList, finding its distinctive basal rosette or, if you're lucky, that clustered inflorescence is always special! #wildflowerhour

Carex chordorrhiza (String Sedge). Another rare plant in Britain with just two sites in Scotland. This photo is from Insh marshes where the population of this fabulous plant was huge. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Botanical #adventcalendar Day 19 - Wormwood, growing on an old coal mining site. Rare in Scotland & Endangered on the #GBRedList, this was the 1st record in West Perthshire since 1863! #wildflowerhour

If you are thinking about doing a #NewYearPlantHunt, check out bsbi.org/take-part/ac... to find a group hunt near you, or some funky ID resources to help - like this Scotland-specific top 10 spotter sheet! I'll be running a group hunt in Stirling on Sat 3rd January - hope to see you there!

If you missed our #NewYearPlantHunt webinar - or if you'd like to watch it again or share with friends - it's here on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AFS... We covered everything you ever wanted to know about our main citizen science event, now in its 15th year bsbi.org/take-part/ac...

What's the perfect #ChristmasGift for the plant-lover in your life? If they're not already #BSBImembers, how about a year's membership of @bsbibotany.bsky.social? Choose a printed membership pack, posted to your loved one, or a digital pack pinging into their Inbox on Christmas Day. bsbi.org/gift

Earlier this month, we asked you to help us unlock the Plants of the Past. Thanks to the PHENOMENAL generosity of #BSBImembers & supporters, we smashed our @biggive.bsky.social target in record time: what a fabulous result! You can still donate or register to get involved at bsbi.org/take-part/pr...

One-flowered Wintergreen is Day 18 of my botanical #adventcalendar. This rare Caledonian pinewood specialist is a beautiful and fascinating plant that is mixotrophic - it can photosynthesis, but crucially relies on mycorhizzal fungi for the nutrients needed to germinate its seed #wildflowerhour

Montane willow scrub is 1 of our most threatened habitats, with only a few 100 ha remaining throughout Scotland Finding this nationally rare Net-leaved Willow in Perthshire was a fine reward for one of the wettest day's botanising I've ever endured! Botanical #adventcalendar Day 17 #wildflowerhour

Delighted to receive my copy of the new BSBI Roses Handbook. Much better entertainment during the longest nights than Christmas TV!

Oblong Woodsia is perhaps Britain's rarest fern, and Day 16's species for my botanical #adventcalendar It suffered big declines due to Victorian collecting, and the national population now consists of <200 individuals with little evidence of recruitment, despite conservation actions

Day 15 of my botanical #adventcalendar - time for Black Alpine-sedge! If I could I'd fill the calendar with sedges, but my shaky phone-pics aren't good enough 😂 This was a newly discovered population in the Grey Corries - always an exciting plant to find, and very distinctive #wildflowerhour

See in the New Year with our #NewYearPlantHunt - a great way to kick off 2026! bsbi.org/take-part/ac...

Day 14 of my botanical #adventcalendar is this showy number from Stirling Castle Mound - White Mullein. This was recorded in Stirling in 1883, then not seen until 2024 - a gap of 141 years! This nationally scarce plant has seeds that can remain viable for many years, but even so... #wildflowerhour

Botanical #adventcalendar Day 13 is this beauty - Small-white #orchid. Assessed as Vulnerable on the #GBRedList, most of the recorded populations across Britain & Ireland have already been lost through habitat destruction 2025 was a good year for this species at the sites that remain #wildflowerhour

One sunny Feb day we set out to find the Gillies Hill redwoods, towering trees we had seen on the hill on our trips into Stirling. We twisted through dense Rhododendron thickets, following our noses, until the undergrowth opened to reveal the grove of Giant Redwoods! Botanical #adventcalendar Day 12

Every so often I venture south of the border, and Day 11 of my botanical #adventcalendar is the amazing Large-flowered Butterwort - native to SW Ireland, but occasionally introduced in England, including this population in Edale Like @bsbibotany.bsky.social, I couldn't stop grinning! #wildflowerhour

Finally, a fern! Day 10 of my botanical #adventcalendar is the delicate Alpine Lady-fern, a species of Scottish mountains that grows where the snow lies late, consequently declining linked to changing climate I find the pattern of its fronds very restful, almost hypnotic to look at... #wildfernhour

The gorgeous Goat's-beard is my pick for botanical #adventcalendar Day 9 - also known as Jack-go-to-bed-at noon as the flowers open in the morning sun, but close at midday. Widespread, but easily overlooked unless its flowers are open, it also has the best seed clock in botany! #wildflowerhour

Day 8 of my botanical #adventcalendar - Yellow Bird's-nest. This bizarre plant is a mycoheterotroph - it has no chlorophyll, so can't photosynthesis, and gets all its food from parasitising underground fungi! In central Scotland it is found on mining bings - islands of biodiversity #wildflowerhour

"Wowsers!" is what I imagine Graham Goodfellow said when he found this beauty in West Sutherland this summer! This is the hybrid between Frog Orchid and Heath-spotted Orchid, Dactylorhiza x conigera - just the 6th record for B&I and a worthy Day 7 for my botanical #adventcalendar #wildflowerhour

Botanical #adventcalendar Day 6 - Devil's-bit Scabious, its blue-violet flowers almost glowing in the dull light. Sensational! Far more widespread than Day 5's plant, but also assessed as Vulnerable on the #GBRedList as its geographic range has declined by 37% over three generations #wildflowerhour

Love this place, love this photo 😍

From lowland bogs to mountain tops for my BAC Day 5 - Highland Saxifrage! This arctic-alpine hides in north-facing gullies above 750m, its presence often given away by a flush of bright green mosses, & is now VU on the new #GBRedList Pic taken in No. 2 Gully, Ben Nevis North Face #wildflowerhour

One to keep a sharp eye out for whenever you're in north-west Scotland. Distinguishing Narrow-leaved Marsh-orchid from the hybrids that often accompany this and other members of the genus can be a whole extra challenge though!

Day 4 is Bog-rosemary. With nodding pink bells and bicoloured, Rosemary-esque leaves, it brightens up autumnal raised bogs a treat! It reaches the north of its range in central Scotland, where I spent several Sep days refinding old records of this local rarity from the 1980s and 90s #wildflowerhour

Day 3 of my Botanical Advent Calendar - the gorgeous Alpine Speedwell, pinpricks of vivid blue in flushed grassland high in the mountains that get the heart racing #wildflowerhour This was a new site for this species in the Grey Corries, Lochaber - lots still to learn about our Scottish flora!

And there's still time to book your free ticket for this event tomorrow evening (3rd). There will be talk of Welsh Groundsel, Scottish Primrose and both English and Irish Whitebeams! share.google/ULN0e6mGMWGz... @bsbibotany.bsky.social

This month I'm sharing my Botanical Advent Calendar - a plant a day til Xmas, which have helped make my 2025 an amazing year botanically! As I'm a day late kicking off, here are two species of samphire at Aberlady Bay - Yellow Glasswort and Purple Glasswort. Guess which is which! #wildflowerhour

We can't conserve things if we don't know they are there! Old paper records are a treasure trove of info we need to unlock - not just to find out more about past recording, but to inform today's conservation assessments #GBRedList and science... and to help us refind lost plants. Please help!

Window now open to apply for a BSBI grant for 2025! We offer grants for short #WildFlowerID courses (our online course Identiplant & courses from external providers), for Plant Study & Research. Our Grants page also lists other grants that we think might be of interest to botanists: bsbi.org/grants

Still plenty in bloom here in central Scotland for #wildflowerhour - Wild Radish in an arable field, Jersey Cudweed in paving and Sweet Alison making a bid for freedom from a nearby planter. The Cudweed is a recent coloniser, and seems to be spreading from Grangemouth along the Forth & Clyde Canal

There are a lot of sources online that say Shetland is home to the endemic species Edmondston's Chickweed. This is not the case - instead the island of Unst is the only global site for Cerastium nigrescens var. nigrescens, an endemic *variety* of the Artic Mouse-ear.

Looking for a botanical webinar to brighten up a dark winter evening? We've got loads of them! 25th November - 10 years of the National Plant Monitoring Scheme 2nd December - Clubmosses of Ireland and Britain 9th December - Plant ID apps: how useful are they? Book here: bsbi.org/take-part/pr...

Checked out our shiny new website yet? bsbi.org New to @bsbibotany.bsky.social or #WildFlowerID? We think you'll find it easier than ever to access resources, hear about events & learn more about wild plants in your area. Seasoned botanist? All your fave pages are still there + lots of new stuff!

Kicking yourself because you missed Mark Duffell's recent Botanical Skills Webinar on the etymology of scientific names? Or maybe you just want to watch it all over again because there was soooo much to take in! No problem, we recorded the webinar for you! www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8o4...

Some fantastic botanical webinars running throughout the winter, thanks to @bsbiireland.bsky.social and @daera-ni.gov.uk Full line up at bsbi.org/botanical-sk...

Fab winning shots of Grass-of-Parnassus and an intrepid aquatic botanist venturing forth from Scotland, in the 2025 BSBI Photo Competition! Oh go on then, the Reedmace from Cambridgeshire isn't bad either... 😉 Still waiting for my 'blurriest thumb' category to be approved by @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Brilliant to see the #GBRedList making a report on CBBC newsround, headlined by the tale of Fen Orchid recovery. The future of our wonderful plants is in their hands - let's try not to drop the baton before we can hand it over! www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/ar... @plantlifeuk.bsky.social

Doesn’t get much better than dangling on a rope counting Tufted Saxifrage rosettes 🥰🤪 Great talk by Gus to close the #ScotBotanistsConf, big thanks to @plantlifeuk.bsky.social for organising the survey, and watch out for Gus’s final report coming soon…