First, on Sunday 7th April (that's this coming weekend) I will be leading the first of my 2019 recording meetings for Atlas 2020. We will be meeting at St James' church in Nether Worton (SP 426 300) at 1030 - please email me if you would like to come. These meetings are a great way to learn to identify plants, get to know the county's flora and meet other botanists. They will be held fortnightly throughout the season (unless I get overwhelmed with work as in previous years, but that's the plan for now). See the events calendar for future dates.
Second, former county recorder and Oxfordshire Flora Group member Sue Helm asked me to advertise a new book published by her husband Professor Dieter Helm, Green and Pleasant Land. If you attended the OFG conference a few years ago you will remember Dieter's excellent talk about the economics of natural capital, the subject of his previous book Natural Capital: Valuing The Planet, Plants might not be the subject of Dieter's books (though a favourite of Sue's Viola kitaibeliana (dwarf pansy) gets a few mentions in Natural Capital if I remember rightly), but plants are an example of what he calls 'natural capital' and according to Dieter it is our failure to account for these assets that has lead to the destruction of so much of our flora, among other wildlife. His new book is already on my pile of 'to read' books, and I am sure it will contain many thought-provoking ideas relevant to plant conservation, if in a rather different way to that which we are used to thinking about conservation.
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