Flora Launch

Last week we launched the book in style, thanks to Tim Rich and Rebecca Price the organisers. I talked briefly to a capacity crowd (over 50) at the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Visitor Centre but the book mainly spoke for itself. Two of Mike's sons and his wife were there with us.

Books are available now at: Summerfield Books

A Walk along the Wye from Builth Wells

 In 2013 I photographed this Black-poplar on the Wye bank east of Builth.

Populus nigra subsp. betulifolia, Black-poplar

These magnificent trees have long been in the county and are considered to be native in England but are probably introductions in Breconshire where they may have been planted to provide timber. Most trees in the county are males, making natural reproduction difficult...

We visited it again as a botany group yesterday only to find it sadly changed:

The tree-surgery may well have been advisable - to prevent it falling under its own weight into the river - and it is clearly responding vigorously to the treatment ! We noticed that the trunk is very hollow at the bottom...

Just to prove it clearly is the same tree here it is in 2013 before coming into leaf:

The tree was first recorded in in 1996 and was identified as the native subspecies in 2005 by Mike Porter. The first picture above is featured in Mike's Flora of the county.

The Flora of Brecknockshire

Why "Brecknockshire"?

It covers more places than the current ceremonial county of Breconshire and Mike Porter wanted this title. 

The County used for wildlife recording purposes is quite a lot larger than the current Powys southern limits allow and is the same as the area designated by Hewett Cottrell Watson in 1852. He had not heard that Glasbury had not long ago been made part of Breconshire - so we still leave that area to the Radnorshire recorders.

In the early part of the 20th century the name Brecknockshire became popular for the area.

Here is the leaflet promoting the book:

New Year - new start. The Brecknockshire New Year Plant Hunt

This blog has been resting while I (and members of the group) worked on completing the Flora of the County which will be published in the spring. Sadly Mike Porter, who wrote almost all of it, did not live to see it fully published. Mike was County Recorder for Botany from 1968 until last year so this Flora will be the end result of a lifetime's work.

We (the Brecknock Botany Group) intended to do a group hunt for the BSBI New Year Plant Hunt scheme at Trecastle but weather warnings (a little OTT as it turned out) decided us to do several small local hunts - including one in which two of us did brave it to Trecastle.

In all 65 wild growing plants were found flowering in the county with the highest tally being at Llangynidr by Anne and Joan. (26)

A few pictures:

Arabidopsis thaliana, Thale Cress at Trecastle, Claire Halpin

Several of us found Daisies flowering (Bellis perennis). This from Hay Graveyard by me.

Chaenorhinum origanifolium, Malling Toadflax thrives all year round near my house - not intervention from me at all and has been there since 2013 when it presumably escaped from a window box. Now naturalized in pavement cracks.

Lamium purpureum, Red Dead-nettle is a more recent arrival in the same habitat. Now well established.

Several of us found this grass which grows everywhere and "flowers" all year round. Poa annua, Annual Meadow-grass.