Guernsey joins national plant hunt to show changes in environment
EAGLE-EYED islanders have been helping to spot flowers over the last few days, which could help identify how Guernsey’s environment is changing.
This is the ninth year the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland has held the New Year plant hunt.
La Societe Guernesiaise has taken part for the last five years, helping to identify local plants and submitting records to the national organisation.
The botany section held a walk on Saturday afternoon around Petit Bot to try and spot as many flowers as they could.
Section co-secretary Helen Litchfield said it was a good chance to look at what was going on in the island.
‘It helps us to gather information about things like global warming,’ she said.
‘There are quite a lot of plants out and the walk took in various habitats. We were on the south-facing cliffs, so that way we saw the most plants.’
About a dozen people turned out to take part in the walk.
Among the plants spotted were red campion, daisies and winter heliotrope.
Nearly 1,500 people across the UK took part in last year’s hunt. Saturday was the last chance for people to look for flowers this year and so far more than 600 lists have been submitted and more than 11,000 unique records sent.
Daisies, dead nettles and meadow grass are so far some of the most common plants spotted.
