Cambridge Meetings

 

 

 

Accommodation:  There are a large number of hotels and guest houses in and around Cambridge.  The Tourist Information web page gives details for many of them.  

Blakeney Point / Cambridge Botanic Garden / BSBI Conference on Flora of Cold Regions / BSBI AEM

2012 July 7 and 8.  BSBI meeting at Blakeney Point.  Saturday: Meet at the car park at Cley Eye TG048452 at 9:30am. Registration essential.

This is the first of two meetings that will cover locations visited just over 100 years ago by A G Tansley and his party on their Phytogeographical Excursion in the British Isles. It is organised jointly with the Cambridge Natural History Society.  On Saturday we will walk the length of Blakeney Point where we may see plants reported by Tansley, such as Sea Sandwort Honckenya peploides, Sea-lavender Limonium spp, Oysterplant Mertensia maritima (last seen in 1931), Glasswort Salicornia spp, Sea Campion Silene uniflora and Shrubby Sea-blite Suaeda vera.  Having gained experience of the local vegetation, we will split into two groups on Sunday and will visit Stiffkey and Morston and their salt-marshes.  On both days we will make tetrad records with monad resolution.

We will be given an introduction by the National Trust on our arrival.  High tide is around 9:30am over the weekend and low tide is at about 16:30.  On Saturday we will record as we walk westwards along the point, and return more quickly along the beach at the end of the day.  How far we get will depend on how fast we walk!  Monads TG0245 and TG0246 appear to have few recent records in the BSBI database so these will be our main recording targets for the Saturday.  Bring your preferred identification aids, lenses, gps, packed lunch, appropriate clothing, footwear, kneelers, weather-writers etc.  The boundary between vc27 and 28 is approximately TG014463.  The distribution of groups on Sunday is provisional and may be changed after Saturday.

 

2012 August 4.  BSBI Field Meeting - Cambridge Botanic Garden, Sheep's Green and Coe Fen.  Meet at the entrance to the Botanic Garden on the corner of Bateman Street TL451573 at 10:00am.  Registration essential.

This is the second of two meetings that are covering locations visited just over 100 years ago by A G Tansley and his party on their Phytogeographical Excursion in the British Isles.   This meeting marks the start of Tansley’s Tour and will visit the Botanic Gardens (guided, as was Tansley, by their Curator), The Backs and Sheep’s Green.  At the Botanic Garden we will see the beds that show off some of our local plants and have lunch at the Cafe.  We will then move on to the Backs via Coe Fen and return through Sheep’s Green.  This meeting will concentrate on demonstrating local plants and practicing recording techniques, though formal records of any new plants found on Coe Fen, Sheep’s Green and the Backs will be submitted.  Locally rare plants seen in the area over the last decade include Whorl Grass Catabrosa aquatica, Green Flowered Heleborine Epipactis phyllanthes, Purple Toothwort Lathraea clandestina, Summer Snowflake Leucojum aestivum and Butterbur Petasites hybridus.

 

2012 August 5.  CNHS Local meeting.

 

2012 November 23.  BSBI Conference - The Flora of Cold Regions.  [Information updated 2012 November 27]

 

2012 November 24.  BSBI Annual Exhibition Meeting.  Theme : Conservation Management for Flora.   The meeting was open to all and there was no registration charge.  Tea, coffee and biscuits were available all day.  There is seating in the exhibition area, which is normally the BAS canteen.  [Information updated 2013 February 10]

 

2012 November 25.  CNHS Local meeting.