Green Lent Project
The results of the Green Lent Project are on iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/green-lent-project-care-for-god-s-creation.
The project originally covered Cheshire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria but was later extended to cover England and the Isle of Man. It covered all taxon groups not just vascular plants.
Lancashire Botany Group
Lancashire Botany Group is the Lancashire Wildlife Trust's Botanical Group. Links to news and information about group activities should be provided here in due course and will include a programme of field excursions for the forthcoming season to under-recorded 10km squares. It is intended that this recording activity will boost the 10km checklists of species recorded from 2000 onwards for the BSBI Atlas 2020 project.
The Lancashire Botany Group grew out of the Lancashire Endangered Plants Group, members of which have been busy monitoring populations of a number of rare and declining species since 2007.
It was recognised that in addition to species monitoring there was a need to visit local wildlife sites at both county and district level to carry out much needed site surveys. An increasing numbers of budding botanists became available to help with such surveys and this group provides the opportunity for members to learn more about wildflower identification from more experienced botanists as well as developing knowledge of practical survey techniques.
Members of the group have played a prominent role recording species for the Greater Manchester Ecology Unit led Grey to Green Project and the Lancashire Wildlife Trust led Biodiverse Society Project in association with LERN and Biobank – the Lancashire and North Merseyside Local Environmental Record Centres.
This increased rate of surveying is enabling conservation bodies to keep abreast of the changing wildflower populations with the aim of protecting our local flora especially those species placed on Endangered, Rare, Scarce and the Axiophyte (noteworthy plant) species lists.
If you wish to assist us with botanical recording or monitoring in Lancashire, Greater Manchester, North Merseyside (and areas of adjoining counties that are within the historic Watsonian vice-counties of VC59 & VC60) do contact our co-ordinator at david.earl@lancashire.gov.uk for further details.
To join Lancashire Wildlife Trust visit their membership page at http://www.lancswt.org.uk/joinus
County Recorder
Resources and other local botany groups
Click on the links to download lists of Rare and Scarce Plants in VC59 and VC60.
The Flora of North Lancashire by Eric Greenwood was published in 2012 by Carnegie Publishing Ltd of Lancaster (ISBN 978-1-874181-89-7). It covers Lancashire north of the R. Ribble and includes the whole of v.c. 60 and part of v.c. 64. It can be obtained from the publisher and bookshops.
A Facebook group called Lancashire and Merseyside Botany has been set up with the aim of "sharing all things botanical" in vice-counties 59 & 60. Click here to view the page. There's also Liverpool Botanical Society.
