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Saturday, December 07, 2013

Indoors

This botanical recorder hasn't been out much for a while - a combination of factors including the weather have contributed to the situation. (Yes I know there have been good days but they always coincided with stuff in the diary or being indisposed.)

But botanical work continues - including a draft list of species new to their hectad* in Brecon - 89 entries in all. But many of these are not of great significance and it may well be that further checks eliminate others. One example of this "lesser significance" (in the sense that the taxon had clearly been there for a long time) is that Paul Green showed me the distinctive characteristics of Urtica dioica subsp. galeopsifolia - not previously differentiated in Breconshire - and I haven't even got round to photographing it yet...

It has to be said that the majority of the species on the list are there because of the people who came out with me this year and only a small percentage are "all my own work" - there are contributions from all my accomplices, expert and / or keen-eyed. I look forward to more such assistance next year !

And my friend John, it turns out, visited Craig Cerrig-gleisiad at the right time to see (probably) truly native Welsh Poppy's this year so his pictures are now on the website - and here:
Welsh Poppy, Meconopsis cambrica photographed at CCG by John Clark in October

I did see this species this year - and it was new to the hectad - but growing in the rubble near a new cattle grid. And, of course it is a common sight in many Mid-Wales towns as a garden escape.

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* A hectad is a 10km square on the Ordinance Survey Grid defined by a 2 digit grid reference such as SN86.