Resources
Small-flowered crane's-bills Guide
We have written a guide to the small-flowered geraniums/crane's-bills, our most comprehensive and detailed descriptions of a group of plants so far. These plants can be confusing as there can be quite a lot of plasticity, and this user-friendly guide should be helpful to all those venturing out this spring. The guide is designed to be printed and taken out into the field.
As always, please send in records for these species, for other interesting plants, or for any surveys that you make.
Elm key
Elms (Ulmus) are widely acknowledged to be difficult to identify and Wiltshire suffers from its fair share of confusion about these idiosyncratic trees. Brian Eversham has put together and excellent and informative key to the genus and has very kindly allowed us to make it available to WBS members. You can download it by clicking here.
There is also a very comprehensive album of elm images, photos, with a short introductory essay here.
Good Plants: the hunt's (back) on to record seasonal species!
Since 2021, as part of the ongoing recording of the plants of Wiltshire, the WBS has targeted recording of certain species which historically have been under- recorded.
Our latest (April 2024) list of Good Plants has been published - how many can you find? You can also download any past lists from the archive below.
Recording cards and a spreadsheet are available on the
Recording page. If you only have a few records you can just list them in an email to
Richard Aisbitt. Happy hunting!
WhatsApp Group for WBS members
During the first covid lockdown in 2020, WBS member, Dave Green put together a WhatsApp group called Wiltshire Botany to help members stay in touch with plants and each other whilst isolating. He wrote:
"For anyone unfamiliar with WhatsApp, it is a social networking group that allows anyone to post on the site items they feel of interest to other members. This can include photos, memories, scientific tit-bits or even requests for assistance for any of us who can’t get out to buy groceries etc. Although called Wiltshire Botany, which is the focus, should anybody come up with some wildlife photos I’m sure the group would love to see them all. Many of you will know about WhatsApp, but those who don’t, this is the way it works: you give me your mobile phone number to add it into my WhatsApp account which is fully encrypted and is not available to anyone else other than me to see. I will then send you a link to connect you to the WhatsApp page. I hope that this app will keep us connected with friends as unfortunately we may not see much of each other for a while and through this we can give support to those who may now be feeling lonely and very much missing the countryside."
Even though we have resumed field meetings, this group has remained very popular and still welcomes new members. All you need to join is an interest in plants.
If
you're new to WhatsApp you must also have a smart phone and you would need to download the app from the Google Play store.
