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Four more species accounts are now available: Pale Butterwort (Pinguicula lusitanica), White Beak-sedge (Rhyncospora alba), Least Bur-reed (Sparganium natans), and Lesser Bladderwort (Utricularia minor).

The SRPG newsletter for 2022 is here, with many thanks to our newsletter editor Karen Andrews and all the authors for creating such a varied and interesting publication. In this edition we have the usual review of activities last year, reports of all our indoor and field meetings, a summary of interesting plant records, and articles by members.

The first article celebrates the foundation of the group in June 1998 with a fascinating gallery of photographs of our many memorable meetings and remarkable botanists. A conference is being planned for October to further mark this milestone. This edition also contains appreciations of the lives of Liz McDonnell and Clive Lovatt, who will be greatly missed by all who knew them.

The “green maps” showing the recording effort up to the end of last year are also available here.

Following all the brilliant recording last year, we have reviewed and updated the RPR.  Many species accounts will need revising so watch this space for news of updates.  Meanwhile a selection of just some of the significant records made in 2022 is included in the SPRG Newsletter, which will be issued shortly.

We’ve published our winter meeting programme (click for further details) which includes our contribution to BSBI’s New Year Plant Hunt, our AGM and review of the year, an outdoor meeting to improve our winter identification of trees and shrubs, and a vegetative plant identification day. A highlight this winter will be the talk by Nigel Phillips on the nature of Somerset’s coast as part of our online AGM.

Reports of two meetings in August are now available. The first meeting was held at Middle Hope, the limestone ridge at the north end of Sand Bay, which as you can see was showing the effects of the hot and dry weather. Targets that were re-found included Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) and Cheddar Pink (Dianthus gratianopolitanus). The second meeting started at Backwell Lake, and continued via the railway station along the Nailsea Round footpath. Copse Bindweed (Fallopia dumetorum) was found at its only known site in Somerset.

Our map which shows the number of records for each monad (Ordnance Survey 1km grid square) since the year 2000 has been updated. A second map shows the number of different species/subspecies for each monad. You can find them under the Activities>Recording section. There is also an introduction to recording there which explains how recording is carried out by members across the county.

There have been a few changes to the last few meetings of the year, mainly in the contacts and leaders but please note that the last meeting of the year is now a week earlier.  See here for the details.

You can now read about the recent meeting based at Simonsbath led by Graham Lavender. There are many fine plant photographs by him and Fred Rumsey including Somerset rarities such as Cranberry, Oak Fern, Stag’s-horn Clubmoss, Fir Clubmoss, and several rare aquatics from Pinkery Pond. All the meeting reports can be found here. All photos below © Fred Rumsey.