We're hiring! Could you help us support & grow the community of botanists across Northern Ireland? Manage our @daera-ni.gov.uk-funded Botanical Skills Training Project? Help boost participation in @npms.bsky.social across NI? Please apply by midnight this Sunday, 21 Sept: bsbi.org/botanical-sk...

How Wales’s National Botanic Garden came back from the brink www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... "Upcoming priorities include an ambitious project aimed at reversing Welsh-native flora decline, safeguarding Wales’s 58 endemic species from habitat loss, and creating a living native plant collection."

Nature book challenge. A book per in no particular order, until you've s ALL of the best nature books in you personal library. No explanations, no reviews, #Books #Nature #Naturewriting #naturebooks #conservation #naturebookchallenge #booksky

Sunday book review: Urban Plants by @trevorthebotanist.bsky.social Publisher: @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social Review: bit.ly/402ICiU 'A great pleasure to browse, an even greater one to read' 'Book of Year contender' @bsbibotany.bsky.social @bsbiscience.bsky.social @plantlifeuk.bsky.social

Out with lovely peeps from Harrogate District Naturalists’ Society yesterday visiting a private SSSI near to Knaresborough. Bee and Fragrant Orchids (Ophrys apifera & Gymnadenia conopsea s.s.) were definitely the main crowd pleasers!

I don’t usually ‘do’ Hawkweeds but couldn’t resist this lovely one growing near to Pannal en route to my @btobirds.bsky.social BBS square this morning: Hieracium triviale f. subfasciculare apparently. The ability of these plants to thrive in zero substrate is remarkable! @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Time spent with some rather lovely plants and people from @bsbibotany.bsky.social in the Derbyshire Dales this week including Jacob’s-ladder (Polemonium caeruleum), Shaggy Mouse-ear Hawkweed (Pilosella peleteriana), Nottingham Catchfly (Silene nutans) and Hoary Mullein (Verbascum pulverulentum).

8/6/25 Yorkshire - A hop over the border to God's own country proved rather fruitful, with many fine #orchids to be seen. This reintroduced Lady's Slipper #Orchid (Cypripedium calceolus) on a woodland margin above a stream is particularly magnificent this year #wildflowerhour @bsbibotany.bsky.social

I never tire of seeing Jacob’s-ladder, so named because its leaves resemble the ladder that Jacob used to access heaven. In Britain it is a very rare plant confined limestone regions such as the Yorkshire Dales where there are a few colonies on steep, scree slopes below limestone cliffs.

8/6/25 Yorkshire - The Small White #Orchid (Pseudorchis albida) is far rarer than it should be, as a species that tolerates a wide range of habitats. Unfortunately overgrazing (baa) and improvement has rendered this plant particularly rare in England and Wales #wildflowerhour @bsbibotany.bsky.social

8/6/25 Yorkshire - It's become a tradition each year for us to see Pugsley's Marsh #Orchids (Dactylorhiza traunsteinerioides) at Kilnsey. There's a fair bit of hybrid shenanigans taking place, but this lop-sided plant with strongly lobed flowers is bang on #wildflowerhour @bsbibotany.bsky.social

What happens when you don’t cut the grass? Rare orchids appear! Southern Marsh Orchid (Dactylorhiza praetermissa) recorded for the first time on The Stray, Harrogate in an area left uncut for biodiversity. Found by @clarepinches.bsky.social Well done North Yorks Council 👏

Orchid on the brink of extinction returns to the wild🌱 The iconic Lady’s-slipper orchid, once thought extinct in the early 20th century, was rediscovered in 1930. Find out how we've helped return it to the wild - loom.ly/gM2516E 📷Kevin Walker/Dr Elizabeth Cooke

Woohoo! Publication Day! It’s finally hitting the streets, just like the plants it features. From walls to pavements, fallow waste ground, the grassy bits and street trees, it’s a celebration of urban botany and I really hope you enjoy it! www.bloomsbury.com/uk/urban-pla...

Great to work with partners @yorkswildlife.bsky.social @rbgkew.bsky.social @plantlifeuk.bsky.social & @naturalengland.bsky.social on a secret project to nurture Lady's-slipper Orchid back into the wild in Yorkshire! More info here: plantatlas2020.org/atlas/2cd4p9... & here: bsbi.org/download/467...

Mountain biking at Dalby Forest, North Yorks with @clarepinches.bsky.social yesterday produced this rather lovely Red-necked Footman amongst the conifers. Not a moth I’d seen before but not surprising as it seems to be a recent colonist in this part of the world! @savebutterflies.bsky.social

Oh my word! Botanist about to explode! Just unboxed my presentation copies of Urban Plants & I’m as giddy as a bee in a bellflower. It’s a beautiful thing, from the gorgeous Carry Akroyd cover to the photos kindly provided by many lovely people. Hope you enjoy it www.bloomsbury.com/uk/urban-pla...

Sadly Wood Crane’s-bill Geranium sylvaticum no longer occurs in hay meadows in Nidderdale, due to a shift to silage production, but it still survives on road verges like this one here near to Lofthouse.

Holy Moley! Some serious control going on in Upper Nidderdale. We counted 157 in this larder and there was an even bigger one just down the road. I naively thought that these public displays were a thing of the past, sadly not here in North Yorkshire anyway.

Can’t resist posting a flowering Bay Willow Salix pentandra! This is a male tree which have been widely planted for their lovely yellow catkins. Female trees are much rarer, certainly here in North Yorkshire.

Left or right? I know which one I prefer. St Robert’s Church in Pannal embracing #NoMowMay to the benefit of wildflowers and insects 👏👏👏

Astonished by the resilience of this Yorkshire Sandwort Arenaria norvegica subsp. anglica on Ingleborough the other day. Growing on a tiny scrap of moss on a bone dry slab of limestone during one of the longest spring droughts on record. 🫡 ✊

Small but mighty. Dwarf Milkwort Polygala amarella is super rare with a stronghold in the Yorkshire Dales. Easily told from Common Milkwort P. vulgaris by its smaller flowers and large-leaved basal rosette.

Mountain Avens Dryas octopetala growing alongside Horseshoe Vetch Hippocrepis comosa in Yorkshire today. Possibly the only place in the world where these two species grow together?

The Alps? No, Mountain Avens Dryas octopetala at its southern limit in Yorkshire today. Enjoy.

10/5/25 Co. Durham - It's fascinating to think that the insectivorous plant Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris, pictured) is a known host for the hemiparasitic arctic alpine, Alpine Bartsia (Bartsia alpina). That may be the case here! @bsbibotany.bsky.social @bsbiscience.bsky.social #wildflowerhour

Small Mouse-ears 🤍💚@bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

Warning; may contain photos of alien plants! A quick recce along the Oak Beck, Harrogate this morning. All usual ‘escapees’ from RHS Harlow Carr including Coralroot, Aconite-leaved Buttercup, Purple Toothwort and Greater Cuckoo-flower 1/2

Birkham Wood (Knaresborough) is looking astonishingly beautiful at the moment; bluebells, yellow archangel, stitchwort all at their best and a few herb paris revealing themselves amongst a sea of dog’s mercury @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Natural colonisation of woodland/shrubland at 4, 10 & 29 yrs. Same spot, looking towards ancient woodland seed source 90 m away at Monks Wood Chronosequence. Still in dynamic change, dense hawthorn & blackthorn thickets are nursery for emerging oaks. Teeming with warblers, soil carbon increasing.

Öland birding here we come! Staying in this trailer for the next couple of days. Stopped on the way from Stockholm and got one lifer and 16 new species for 2025. 🦉 #birds Buzzard perching in the windmill Terrible 📷 of a Kentish plover through the spotting scope

Kidney Vetch in assorted colour forms (with Spring Squill in the 1st photo). Pentireglaze #Cornwall today. Anthyllis vulneraria

Some of our #wildflowers are so incredibly minuscule they are very easy to miss! This week’s challenge is to get your specs 🤓 on & see if you find any #tinyplants in bloom. Share your finds for #WildflowerHour this Sunday 8-9pm! Happy teeny flower spotting! 🧐🌸🌿

Feels important to say that the Government Printing Office sells these incredible Charley Harper national parks service posters. They're huge, they're just 16 bucks each, and mine got here 2 days after ordering them.

My exhibition Trees and Birds starts at Yorkshire Arboretum on 4th April and continues until 5th May. It's a wonderful time to visit the arboretum with Trees bursting into leaf and hopefully redstarts singing soon! For more information see the link below jonathanpomroy.wordpress.com

Some lovely flowers from an evening stroll at Aubert Ings SSSI near to Knaresborough with @clarepinches.bsky.social. Wild Tulip Tulipa sylvestris, Snake’s-head Fritillary Fritillaria meleagris and the spring leaves of Meadow Saffron Colchicum autumnale @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Not much of a tree but the best I can do: flowers of bog myrtle Myrica gale near to Kindrogan last week for #wildflowerhour

Some gorgeous purple saxifrage Saxifraga oppositifolia seen on Ben Lawers last week for #WildflowerHour @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Annual pilgrimage to see Purple Saxifrage Saxifraga oppositifolia on Pen-y-Ghent yesterday; lots of Draba incana too but no sign of Hutchinsia Hornungia petraea that was last recorded in 1978

Rare Spring Sedge (Carex ericetorum), part of the ark population at @nosterfieldnr.bsky.social habitat nursery. An extremely localised plant of short turf on limestone, categorised as Vulnerable in GB.

We are have updated our research into which garden plants attract the most pollinators. Our original research included 5 years of data. We then moved house so this is now 9 years of data over 2 different locations. www.rosybee.com/research-study

Some early flowers from Yorkshire; Mezereum Daphne mezereum is a rare shrub which occasionally grows on limestone pavement. The gorgeous Blue Moor-grass Sesleria caerulea is another national rarity that is super abundant on limestone throughout the Yorkshire Dales. Ingleborough, 27/3/2025

In York today to see England Red Roses triumph over Italy. So called in on York Radiate Groundsel Senecio eboracensis on the way back to the train station; lots by Lendal Bridge

Looking for a PhD in biological invasion? Come and join us at Coventry University @coventrycawr.bsky.social this September to study emerging invasive plants. Project in collaboration with @bsbiscience.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social and linked to @onestop-project.eu.

Most birders or bird artists will not have heard of my friend, John Steele, but as far as UK wildlife artists go, I rate him up there with the very best. A Northumbrian who keeps himself mostly to himself. Ive just found this small booklet he illustrated many years ago... #BirdArt 1/2

🌳 The Government has unveiled its #NBSAP. It’s a key step to achieving the UK’s UN Biodiversity goals. Zero Hour welcomes this National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan—but it doesn’t pack the punch we need to reverse nature’s destruction by 2030. 🧵

Staggering amount of the non-native Few-flowered Leek Allium paradoxum along the River Whiteadder in Berwickshire. Dominating riversides disturbed by floods and extending back into adjacent woodland. Seems to be mainly dispersing by bulbs rather than bulbils.

Sadly large hedgerow elms are a thing of the past; thankfully we have Rowland Hilder’s paintings to remind us of these magnificent trees.

Simulated management strategies for tree invasions in grasslands reveal that early removal of saplings is the most cost-effective approach to limit population size, spread, and impact 🌲 These methods are adaptable to any invasive woody species with sufficient data 🌎🧪 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Incredible find by @natureswork.bsky.social! I've found just 6 records of Purple Saxifrage flowering in Feb previously on the BSBI database - 1 on 4th Feb 2020 holds the record but this is the 2nd earliest! Hope you've submitted the #record 👍also how awesome is Purple Sax! @bsbiscience.bsky.social