Botanising in Huntingdonshire, Yorkshire and Beyond

I am the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) Vice-County Recorder for Huntingdonshire (VC31) and Mid-West Yorkshire (VC64). I've set-up this botany blog to more readily share news on recent wildflower discoveries made by myself and others, to encourage wider recording, and as a way to challenge myself to take more photographs of the plants I find. See the BSBI website for more information on the work of the society and the diverse range of botany projects currently in progress.

Tuesday, 6 August 2019

Eastern Parsnip Reaches Leeds

Eastern Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa subsp. urens) is a recent edition to the British list and appears to be spreading rapidly. The only positive of my taxi ride home today due to the inadequacies of the British rail network is that it allowed me to spot it in a number of locations on the road network. Definitely one to watch out for elsewhere in the region, it seems to favour road margins and the central reservation. See Stace 4 for the distinguishing features (once known it can be told at a glance), and check out its current distribution here. Currently Leeds is its most northerly outpost.

Photo by Emmanuel Stratmains (www.tela-botanica.org via Wikimedia Commons)

Photo by Mathieu Menand (www.tela-botanica.org via Wikimedia Commons)