Category Archives: Plants

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Lichen exploration on campus

Whiteknights is an amazing teaching resource. Recently I led a lichen ‘walk’ for the Reading District Natural History Society from the car-park in front of the Harborne Building. I’ve put ‘walk’ in inverted commas because we really didn’t walk very … Continue reading

Posted in Bacteria, Bryophytes, Fungi, Green Algae, Lichen, Liverworts, Plants | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Whiteknights Flower Rich Campus

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Victoria Wickens from the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research (CAER) has kindly provided a series of photos taken on campus over the summer.

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A Selection of Plants on the Whiteknights Campus – October 2014

Building on the success of the species lists of Whiteknights Biodiverisity, the aim here is simply to get up to date information on what is on the Whiteknights Campus right now. Here follows a brief list of some of the … Continue reading

Posted in Flowering Plants, Plants | 1 Comment

Ideal home or revolting distortion?

If you need a safe place to live, why not get a home built to your own specifications? That’s what the larvae of Dasineura sisymbrii, a kind of gall midge do. The presence of the larvae amongst the developing flower buds … Continue reading

Posted in Brassicaceae, Flowering Plants, Galls, Insects, Plant Pathology Research Group, Plants | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Cyperus re-found and lost again

Galingale, Cyperus longus, was recorded as ‘status uncertain’ in The Flora of Whiteknights Park in 2011. It had been seen in the past by the lake and in the Harris Gardens – both places where it had been planted – but was not … Continue reading

Posted in Cyperaceae, Flowering Plants, Plants | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Sowing the seeds of diversity

At 10am on Thursday morning the Vice chancellor welcomed visitors to the Harris Garden to create a wild flower space on campus with native seeds from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as part of the Big Lottery funded Grow Wild … Continue reading

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Rusts affect weeds as well as crops!

A species of plant that is present on campus in greater numbers this year is Black bindweed, Fallopia convolulus. It has appeared in quite large numbers behind the Agriculture Buildings and also around the Harborne Building.

Posted in Animals, Flowering Plants, Fungi, Insects, Plant Pathology Research Group, Plants, Polygonaceae | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Welcome week MSc Plant Diversity plant ID quiz

This gallery contains 20 photos.

To help the new MSc Plant Diversity students settle in, and to provide us with a baseline against which we can tailor our teaching, the annual plant ID quiz is now running.  For each of 18 samples the students were … Continue reading

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Marble galls on oak

Early autumn is a great time to go looking for galls. Most have had time to develop but those on leaves are still on the trees for easy spotting. Two of the larger galls on oak are Knopper galls and … Continue reading

Posted in Fagaceae, Flowering Plants, Galls, Insects, Plant Pathology Research Group | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Are there any good photographers out there?

The campus species lists are steadily growing but we don’t have campus images to go with them. Some images are now coming in via the KiteSite app but we still have a very long vay to go.  If you have … Continue reading

Posted in Flowering Plants, Plants | 3 Comments