Somerset Rare Plants Group

Due to the storm warnings today and possible transport or other disruption tomorrow the SRPG field meeting tomorrow, Saturday 19th February, has been postponed. All those who booked have been informed by email. The meeting will now take place one week later on Saturday 26th February. Please contact the meeting leader  simonleach@phonecoop.coop if you have any questions.

There has been some re-arrangement of the menus which hopefully will make things easier to find. The newsletters can now be accessed from the top-level menu. We are working on an index to the newsletters which will help with searching for useful information. The former Publications section is now “Somerset Botany” and includes a Help with ID section (containing the old Articles and Presentations). We hope to add a History (of Somerset botany) section here in due course. There is a new section on the work of our Dandelion enthusiasts under Activities > Projects.

Our programme of meetings for 2022 is now available under the Activities menu, or you can download it in printable form here.

Phenology – or the study of the timing of natural phenomena – has been in the news this week with The Guardian reporting “Flowers arriving a month early in UK as climate heats up”. This is based on the dataset created by the Nature’s Calendar project run by the Woodland Trust and the Centre for Hydrology and Ecology. The underlying paper published by the Royal Society is here. The lead author, Prof Ulf Büntgen has also been talking about it on this week’s Inside Science on Radio 4.

Moving from the national to the local picture, Simon has kindly put together a report on last year’s First Flowering project. You can find a link to it at the end of the First Flowering page.

SRPG converged on Bridgwater this year to participate in the BSBI’s annual hunt for plants in flower at New Year. The River Parrett forms the boundary of our two vice-counties here, so we divided into two teams on either side of the river. The VC5 contingent did particularly well and came fourth in the national results. Helena and Fred carried out an additional hunt in Bath, while Simon also explored his patch in Taunton. They came, respectively, third and fifth nationally, which much say something about the keenness and expertise of Somerset botanists. Full report here.

The details of our winter meetings programme have now been finalised with some changes to dates from those previously published here. The monthly meetings between January and March are: New Year Plant Hunt (Bridgwater), AGM (via Zoom), Winter Twigs (Taunton), and an indoor meeting focusing on recording and mapping (Shapwick). Full details are available under the Activities > Meetings menu or you can get a printable version here. As you would expect all plans are subject to change should the Covid situation deteriorate.

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Photos: Simon Leach

This year our dandelion hunters have claimed three county ‘firsts’ in section Erythrosperma, including one – Taraxacum lambinonii – which is also new to GB. All the details can be found in the latest update to the checklist (see Articles and Presentations in the Publications menu). Included are c. 60 new records at hectad level, 12 new VC5/6 records and 10 species new to Somerset. Ignoring dubious/erroneous records for three [square-bracketed] species, the county total now stands at 170 species; 157 in VC5 and 93 in VC6. Thanks to Simon, Jeanne, and Graham for their fieldwork and the updates to the checklist.

The last of this summer’s meeting reports is now available under the Activities menu. Clean Moor, near Milverton, is an unusual site in Somerset as a mire fed by lime-rich water which gives rise to a distinctive suite of plant species.

The SRPG Committee has decided to hold two autumn meetings to coincide with the Wild Flower Society’s ‘Autumn Week Hunt’ (recording plants in flower in the last 7 days of October). We’ll have one meeting in VC6 (North Somerset) and one in VC5 (South Somerset) on the same weekend of 30^th/31^st October. We are also planning to participate in the BSBI New Year Plant Hunt, hold our AGM in January and, if possible, hold an indoor meeting in March. Further details can be found under the Activities menu.