Whilst GNS does not normally advertise the meetings of other societies, we do have close links with the Bristol Naturalists Society and their next indoor meeting is directly related to the recent publication by GNS of the “Special” edition of The Gloucestershire Naturalist No. 25 – A Provisional Red Data Book of Gloucestershire Bryophytes. The author, Richard Lansdown, will be giving a talk to the BNS on Monday 24 November on the Conservation of Bryophytes in Gloucestershire, based on that book. The meeting will be at 7.30pm at the Guide Association Hall, Westmoreland Road, Westbury Park, Bristol BS6 6YW and is free of charge – full details below courtesy of Dr Clive M Lovatt of Bristol Naturalists’ Society:
THE CONSERVATION OF BRYOPHYTES IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE by Richard Lansdown on Monday 24 November, 7.30 pm
Richard Lansdown lives in Stroud and is well known to many members as an expert on water plants. He is the Chair of the IUCN SSC Freshwater Plant Specialist Group. He spoke to us in March 2011 on the subject of new and rare aquatic plants of Britain. He is the author of the BSBI Handbook Water Starworts (Callitriche) of Europe and A Field Guide to the Riverine Plants of Britain and Ireland.
Richard is the joint recorder for bryophytes in Gloucestershire and his new book, A Provisional Red Data Book on Gloucestershire Bryophytes has just been published by the Gloucestershire Naturalists’ Society. It is an authoritative work of 327 pages and lays out and justifies the local threat status of some 200 species, each of which is given an illustrated species account covering distribution and history (with a dot map), habitat and ecology, the condition of populations in Gloucestershire and the conservation action needed.
As Richard points out in the first paragraph of his book, detailed information on the rare bryophytes of Gloucestershire is important in terms of [species and habitat] conservation and he draws attention to where “gaps in our knowledge …impede our ability to work for their conservation”. Some places have been found to be no longer suitable for some or all of the rare species which had been recorded there, but for others there remains the hope that focussed surveys will re-find them.
Expect to be well informed on the current state of the mosses and liverworts of the Watsonian county of Gloucestershire and what needs to be done to look after them and the places they occur.
The meeting will start with tea and coffee to allow questions and discussions to immediately follow the presentation.