A site for botanists in Hampshire

Welcome to this site, which provides a forum for the Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI) in Hampshire, and acts as the web site for the Hampshire Rare Plant Register project. Much of the activity detailed here is also organised by, or in collaboration with, the Hampshire Flora Group which is run and financially supported by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.

New material becomes available here quite often, so check back in the near future. To see what's new on the site and to hear about what's going on, go to the News page.

The 'Login' facility has been removed from the site - all current content is 'open access'. If the 'Login' item still displays in the menu on the left, refresh this page in your browser.

Stop Press - Hampshire Rare Plant Register is now published. See the News page for more details.

BSBI Recorders in Hampshire

To contact us by email:

South Hampshire - Martin Rand
North Hampshire - Tony Mundell

Iris laevigata

The garden Iris Iris laevigata in a New Forest watercourse. This species has been planted out and naturalised in at least four sites in the Forest. Beautiful, certainly, but does it have any place here? The New Forest is internationally notable above all for its wildlife and its traditional commoning regime, and treating it like an extension of a garden can be said to devalue that. Yet a great range of horticultural plants regularly turns up either through dumping, or by deliberate and careful planting (no doubt by well-meaning people). All of them compete for space with the special wildlife of the place at least to a small degree, and some are the means by which seriously invasive species arrive.