Annual plant knowledge quiz among UK and Irish Universities. For more information https://botanicaluniversitychallenge.co.uk/
Botanical University Challenge
Love plants and based in Ireland ☘️? We are always looking for volunteers here too (botanical or otherwise!)
Get in touch at bsbi.org/about/people... - we would love to hear from you 😊
@bsbibotany.bsky.social #VolunteerWeek @bucbotany.bsky.social #botany #irishplants
🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🐡 Lettuce, mostly grown for summer leaves to eat fresh or cooked. Now major horticultural crop. Also varieties for oil from seeds and others with long edible stems. Many leaf shapes and colours. #BUC2026
🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🧪🐡The spice cinnamon is aromatic oils in tree bark & leaves of some species within Family Lauraceae, Genus Cinnamomum. Trees grow in China, SE Asia but traded around the world. The chemicals cinnamaldehyde and eugenol are main reason for flavour. #BUC2026
🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🐡 Dill, herbs related to celery, carrots. Leaves, stems & seeds used for flavouring in cookery, pickles. Originates North Africa & Middle East. Loves hot, sunny weather. #BUC2026
🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴Borage, Borago officinalis, large bristly plant with vivid blue flowers now in UK & Ireland. The flowers were traditionally used to to decorate a gin-based fruit cocktail, Pimm's No. 1 Cup. #BUC2026
🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️Purple saxifrage, common in high arctic and high mountains just about makes it into UK and Ireland. Spring flowers, from March to May. #BUC2026
🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃 🧪🐡 Many plants have mutually beneficial, relationships with other organisms. Frankia alni filamentous bacteria make ammonia, adding hydrogen to nitrogen gas from atmosphere. Cosy home in Alder roots, sugar supply. Tree gets exclusive fertiliser source. #BUC2026
🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴 Evolution of Trees. Fascinating – fossils, DNA, physiology, climate change. Speakers Jenny McElwain Trinity College Dublin, Christopher Berry Cardiff Uni & Bill Baker Kew. Teams from all in Botanical University Challenge. Prof McElwain asked questions 2025.
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴🖌️Ginger originates from maritime SE Asia. The current plant does not exist in the wild. Domesticated and adapted by people over at least 7000 years. First spread around the Pacific, and later to Middle East, Europe and the Americas. Now used in so many cuisines worldwide. #BUC2026
🌱🌾🌍🌺🌳🌲🌿🐡🌴 Beautiful plant flowering now, pasqueflower, Pulsatilla vulgaris, now grows only in a few unimproved chalk & limestone grasslands in England, not elsewhere in UK or Ireland. Perennial plant but numbers declining. More common in rest of Europe - and in gardens! #BUC2026
Botanical University Challenge
How trees first arose from small plants and changed the world, and why new trees emerge.
It's #VolunteerWeek so a chance to thank & celebrate all the volunteers who contribute to our Society's success:
Our c5K #BSBImembers
Our c200 #BSBICountyRecorders & c100 expert Referees
We have a wide range of volunteering opportunities to suit all fellow plant-lovers:
bsbi.org/about/people...
