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The BSBI In Hampshire
The Botanical Society of the British Isles has a national network of
Recorders, each responsible for plant records in his or her area.
What Do the Recorders Do?
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Our most important job is to preserve and maintain an archive of
botanical records made within the county. To give you some idea of the
scale of this task, we currently have over 400,000 Hampshire records computerised,
with a rather smaller number as yet only on recording cards or paper.
This information is made available in various forms to organizations
concerned with studying, monitoring or conserving Hampshire's flora. If you are
undertaking a study for non-commercial research or conservation purposes,
we may be able to supply selected data to you at no charge. If your
study is part of a national initative, contact the
BSBI Coordinator in
the first instance; he will be able to put you in touch with all the
right people. Enquiries from commercial consultants and organizations
should go to the same person.
We also help to organize national BSBI projects at the local level.
In recent years the most important of these have been:
- the Atlas 2000
project, which resulted in the publication of the New Atlas of the
British and Irish Flora, giving the detailed distribution and status
of over 3,000 plants.
- Local Change, a regularly repeated
detailed survey of limited areas of Britain to trace changes in
the flora over the decades. This led to the book Changes in the
British Flora 1987 - 2004.
- The Hybrids Project, which is contributing data to a
new edition of Clive Stace's Hybridization and the British Flora.
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©Martin Rand 2004
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©Martin Rand 2004
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We are always pleased to receive plant records and we will
happily participate in surveys and inspections if you think
you have an interesting plant or a valuable plant site. We will
help in getting plants correctly identified, but please remember
that our time is limited and priority goes to BSBI members. Also
do please be patient if you don't get an immediate reply; we
won't forget you!
Most of our other activities take place in collaboration
with the Hampshire Flora Group. If you have an interest
in Hampshire plants at any level, you should
sign up for this
group, which is run by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife
Trust. Membership is free, and not restricted to Trust members.
- New and interesting plant records are published twice a
year in the Flora Group Newsletter.
- There is a full programme of field meetings and identification
sessions throughout the season, some led by the BSBI Recorders.
- A joint annual exhibition meeting is organized in the winter.
For news of the Hampshire Rare Plant Register project,
click on the item in the menu sidebar at the top of the page.
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If you think you have found a rare or unusual plant...
...then we would love to hear from you. To protect and care for
wild plants, we need to know where they grow! If you have a spreadsheet
program, you will find a simple
fill-in form on this site. Here are some general guidelines for submitting records.
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First, please don't pick it. Some rarities are
protected by law, and you shouldn't gather any part of them
in Britain. Some sites are protected, and you need a
licence to collect a plant from them. And you mustn't uproot
any wild plant without the landowner's permission. In any
case, to be useful, specimens of many species have to be gathered and
preserved in a particular way.
What, where, when, who. These are the essential pieces of
information to record.
- What. If you know exactly what it is, that's fine, but
the important thing in cases of doubt is
to include a description of the plant's features that led you to pick
it out. A field guide or flora will help here. By all means include
photographs and digital images: these are often useful backup, though
it's rarely possible to do an accurate identification from them.
- Where. Use a name on the Ordnance Survey maps,
with a description of how to find the plant (for example:
"take footpath N from churchyard to next hedge. Single
patch on edge of chalk pit on right, just
beyond hedge.") Please give an Ordnance Survey grid reference if
you know how to take one. Six-figure references ("SU412 065") are good;
eight-figure references ("SU4125 0659") are even better, but you will
normally need a GPS to provide these.
- When. Please provide as precise a date as you can.
- Who. The name of the person who found the plant.
If anyone else helped identify the plant, tell us their name too.
There is other useful information you can provide if you have the
time. How large is the population (size of patch, number of
flowering spikes)? Is it scattered or all in a clump? What environment
is it growing in (shady beechwood, south-facing heathy bank)? Are
there any obvious threats to its well-being?
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©Martin Rand 2004
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Hampshire and the Vice-county System
In the second half of the 19th century, the botanist Henry Cottrell Watson
sought a way to describe the distribution of British plants in a
precise, consistent manner. He came up with a scheme of vice-counties
based on the county boundaries as they were in his day. To make the
areas fairly even in size, he divided up larger counties and he merged
tiny ones with one of their neighbours. For instance, Hampshire (as
it then was) became vice-counties 10 (Isle of Wight), 11 (South
Hampshire) and 12 (North Hampshire), while Rutland became part of
vice-county 55 with Leicestershire. This system was soon adopted by
other biologists and naturalists.
Although a lot of modern distribution mapping of species at the
national level is now done at a much finer scale, using the 10km x 10km
squares of the Ordnance Survey National Grid, the vice-county system is
still in use alongside it. For one thing, many older records and
specimens can't be referenced to the National Grid. But the most
important feature for present-day naturalists is that the boundaries
are fixed. This contrasts with current administrative county boundaries
that often do change whenever local government is reorganised.
How Mainland Hampshire Is Divided Up
Although two Recorders for mainland Hampshire have responsibility
for the two vice-counties of South and North Hampshire, we also deal with
local authorities and organisations like the Hampshire Wildlife Trust,
which operate within modern administrative boundaries. So we take an
interest in bits of administrative Hampshire that are not strictly
part of our remit.
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South Hampshire vice-county includes all of Christchurch and
Bournemouth, which are part of modern Dorset. On the other hand,
areas around Wellow, Martin and Damerham fall in vice-county
8 (South Wiltshire).
In North Hampshire vice-county, there are small areas outside
the modern county at Tidworth, Combe and Dockenfield. On the other
hand, areas at Mortimer West End and part of Bramshott are
in present-day administrative Berkshire and Surrey respectively.
Leaving out the fine details, the dividing line between South
Hampshire (vice-county 11) and North Hampshire (vice-county 12)
runs from the Wiltshire boundary along the A30 to Stockbridge;
along the B3049 to Winchester; and then along the A272 to Petersfield
and the Sussex border.
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Derived from Mapmate®, with acknowledgements to Teknica Ltd
Green areas are outside modern Hampshire, brown areas are
inside modern Hampshire but outside the vice-counties
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If you find this all rather confusing when recording
localities for plants, don't worry. We can sort out the details, and
pass on interesting records to our colleagues in neighbouring regions.
BSBI Recorders in Hampshire
To contact us by email:
South Hampshire - Martin Rand
North Hampshire - Tony Mundell
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