3
DO YOU EVER IDENTIFY WILD FLOWERS?
If so you are a botanist! and we would like your name and address on our mailing list. The
Botany Group is a recently instigated informal assemblage of Essex botanists open to all
interested parties. The idea of the group is to disseminate botanical information, and
coordinate recording and conservation effort. Please send your name, address and ideally
your telephone number as well, and you will receive our circulars and notices of meetings.
If you consider yourself to be a 'well known botanist' and have not heard of the group, do not
be offended! we have only had two preliminary meetings of a small group of us to sort out
the kind of problems that as a larger group we need to address.
The most urgent of these was to draw up a list of our rarest plants that need visiting regularly,
to access their status and arrange any necessary conservation measures. We now have to
assign these to particular botanists to visit at the right time of year, and decide whether this
needs doing every year, every other or every five.
Ken Adams
ATLAS 2000
The BSBI have announced that they want to aim for a new edition of the 1962 10Km2 Atlas
of the British Flora for the year 2000. Every third 10Km2 was surveyed pretty thoroughlyduring
the so-called BSBI Monitoring Scheme in 1987/88. What we are now being encouraged to
do is to survey the additional squares during the next five years. The Monitoring Scheme
involved surveying only 6 out of the total of 57 of our Essex squares - so we only have 51 to
do! Rodney Burton (LNHS Botany Recorder) has been volunteered to coordinate the 'S.E.
London' squares (including Vcs 18 & 19), and to chivy us into appointing a recorder for each
square. This is being taken on board by our new Botany Group in conjunction with the Third
Essex Flora project, but volunteers prepared to take on a 10km would always be welcome,
even if it means several people working in the same square. On the new maps plants recorded
prior to 1987 will have a different symbol from later records, so it means we must have post
1987 confirmation for as many species and squares as possible.
Ken Adams
MISTLETOE SURVEY
Apparently Mistletoe is reckoned to be declining in Britain and so we have been asked to
record all known occurrences within the county. This will include colonies growing in
gardens on apple or other trees for commercial or personal supplies. In the wild we have found
it growing on the following remarkable range of hosts in Hatfield Forest: Hawthorn (the
majority), Maple, Hornbeam, Hybrid Black Poplar, Hazel (KJA), Goat Willow (Laurence
Sisitka) and Dog Rose (John Fielding). If you want a copy of the recording card please send
your address or give me a ring. The best time to record mistletoe is in March when it turns
a beautiful golden yellow and stands out at a distance. If you simply find some and don't want
the bother of filling in a card simply phone me and tell me about.
Ken Adams