Botanical records - problems and solutions (update)
Ken Adams 63 Wroths Path, Baldwins Hill, Loughton. Essex IG10 1SH
This not Part 4 of the series (still in gestation) it's an update on the last three in which
I review some more new botanical books that have just arrived on the scene. We are
having a botanical identification guide bonanza at the moment with three new books
just out, and are now virtually surrounded with new Floras of Hertfordshire, Suffolk
(just published) and Kent (in press). First to arrive, the long awaited successor to
Hubbard's Grasses by Tom Cope & Alan Gray, Grasses of the British Isles BSBI
Handbook No:13 (£18 soft back from Summerfield Books ISBN: 9780901158420).
However, they are not the real stars of this book, once again the artist, in this case
Margaret Tebbs, doesn't even get a mention on the cover although her wonderful
drawings display an intimacy of observation and detail far exceeding that given by the
rather disappointing text which takes a rather pedantic conservative approach to many
of the taxa, lumping together taxa that have for some time been regarded by many of
us as distinct. And the authors do not seem to be aware that the rest of us have been
finding Poa infirma all over southern England for some years now. As I have complained
several times before, so many of our wonderful botanical artists are treated like lesser
mortals these days and are not given the credit they richly deserve. The text does
however deal with around 50 additional alien species. Here again it would be hard
going but for Margaret's illustrations of them. The new keys first of all separate out
the tribes, then the genera, and then the species. However despite claiming to be an
improvement on Hubbard's key, it is proving pretty daunting for beginners. It's a
strictly 'botanically correct' key using failsafe but in many cases difficult to observe
characters. What was wrong with Hubbard's key was its technical arrangement, the
two halves of a dichotomy often being many pages apart and hard to trace or backtrack.
What beginners really need is a totally artificial key that uses a selection of easily
observed characters and mini-illustrations- never mind that it will only work for the
taxa covered in the book. I can't see many beginners finding their way successfully
through the keys to tribes and genera, but having got to the genera the keys to species
look very useful and definitive. Nevertheless I suspect that Hubbard still has many
years of usefulness as a less daunting introduction to grass identification.
Next to arrive on the scene was David Streeter's Collins Flower Guide, with a black
cover, worthy companion to the black covered Collins Bird Guide, and Collins Tree
Guide. The 14 x 20cm hard-back came out just before (£25 Summerfield Books ISBN:
978007106219), and the large format hardback version 31x22cm just after Christmas
(£48-50). Covering 1,900 species with 1,400 illustrations, the most yet in a single
volume guide. David is to be congratulated for producing a superb set of species
descriptions, giving just the right tips for definitive identification, and sets of keys to
families and groups of similar genera within families. It covers not only the British
Isles but also much of the Atlantic seaboard down to the Loire, and it includes the
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 62, May 2010
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