New season of ANHS talks
Tuesday 5th September – Scottish Plant Recovery Project
With the days shortening and autumn beckoning, the start of another Arran Natural History Society season of talks is a comforting prospect.
Our first event of the season, on Tuesday, September 5th, has plenty of local interest as we welcome Rachel Robinson and Emma Beckinsale from Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh’s Scottish Plant Recovery project – an ambitious plan to restore 10 threatened Scottish native plant species including the Arran whitebeam group of trees.
The three year project, which commenced in 2023, will see five trees, four flowers and one fern have their survival prospects improved by boosting both numbers and genetic diversity at carefully selected sites across Scotland.
The plants are wych elm, crab apple, Arran whitebeam, Arran service-tree, Catacol whitebeam, whorled Solomon’s seal, small cow-wheat, Alpine blue-sow-thistle, oblong woodsia and marsh saxifrage.
Rachel and Emma will focus closely on the work being done on Arran to propagate and ensure the survival of the rare trees unique to our island.
Before joining the Plant Recovery Project, Rachel worked in the RGPE arboretum. Emma has a background in native tree propagation and conservation and has come from the Trees for Life nursery in the Highlands to work on the Scottish Plant Recovery project.
The talk is in the Ormidale Pavilion at 7.30pm. Entry is free to ANHS members or by donation to society funds for non-members. Membership can be started or renewed at any meeting and is £15 (£25 for couples).
If you don’t get the chance to renew your membership on the night – or would like to join as a new member – please email arrannaturalhistorysociety@gmail.com with your home address and a contact telephone number and we’ll send you details of how to send us your membership fee online.
We look forward to welcoming you back! We’ll be announcing our full programme of autumn and winter talks soon.
Featured image shows Rachel (L) and Emma collecting Arran whitebeam seeds in Glen Rosa. Image credit: Scottish Plant Recovery Project
