The Essex Naturalist
57
The Third Essex Flora and BSBI Atlas 2000 Projects: An historical perspective
K. J. Adams
Dept. Life Sciences, University of East London E15 4LZ.
In 1962, the first ever detailed set of maps of the distribution of living organisms for
an entire country on a scale of 10 x 10 km squares, the Atlas of the British Flora,
(covering Pteridophytes, Gymnosperms and Angiosperms) was published by the
Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI). The survey by BSBI members, involved
the scoring of master cards for almost 3,500 squares and accumulated nearly 1.5
million records. Having participated in a small way in this survey, I became infected
with the mapping bug, and decided to start mapping in Essex on a 1 x 1 km square
basis, initially with bryophytes, but rapidly progressing to higher plants, and had a
few hundred map cards printed with an outline of the two vice counties, the 1 x 1
km square grid, and also the woodlands, streams and rivers (very useful for
preventing a dot in the wrong square!). The decision to work at the 1 km square
scale level of recording was influenced by the detailed soil maps that were being
produced at the time by Robin Sturdy and Ron Allen under the auspices of the Soil
Survey. It was clear from these maps that the local geology was so complex, with its
small patchy areas of glacial and ancient riverine deposits, that tetrads would give
too coarse a grid, and that only at the monad level of recording could we expect to
get a reasonable correlation between the dots and soil type. Working closely with
Stanley Jermyn from 1967 until his sudden death in 1973, a set of map cards for some
300 rare and local Essex higher plants was assembled for his Flora of Essex.
Initially, Stanley's records were kept on a parish basis, and these had to be reworked
onto a 10 x 10 km square basis for the 1962 Atlas. This remained the situation up
until 1967. Stanley at first rebelled against the idea of such detailed mapping, having
taken some persuasion to adopt a 10 x 10 km square arrangement for the Flora, but as
some of my 1 x 1 km square maps began to materialise, particularly that of the Oxlip,
he became more enthusiastic, and from then on we had a regular session in his office
every Wednesday evening, until the early hours, and he agreed that these maps could
be included with the text for the appropriate species in the Flora. Production of the 1
x 1 km square maps necessitated re-mapping many species in the field, driving round
miles of road verges and visiting woods, as well as consultation with numerous
botanists for more detailed information, to make sure the dots were in the correct
squares. It was only in respect of the special plants of the Chalky Boulder Clay and
Chalk of north-west Essex that the maps were reasonably comprehensive for the
county, by the time they were assembled for the second Flora of Essex (Jermyn, 1974).
After the flora was published, a large number of 1 x 1 km square map cards were
printed for me by Basil Harley, then at the Curwen Press (regrettably without the
woodlands - though still with the main rivers and streams). These have since been
used by numerous biologists for assembling data on the distribution of Essex organisms
on a 1 x 1 km square basis, and it seemed logical, that one day, a big push would be
made to map all our Essex plants at this level.