BSBINews - BSBI Archive - Botanical Society of the British Isles

Book Notes - British field crops I BSBIIWFS Presidents' Prize 67
information on sowing and harvest periods,
estimates of acreages planted and the regions
in which each crop may be found. The book
has been carefully updated using new information
from farmers, commercial companies,
agricultural industry organisations, academics
and the latest research findings. illustrated
throughout with crisp, clear botanical
drawings taken from life, British field crops is
the only one-stop-shop for essential informa-
tion on the wide range of food, feed, industrial,
energy, game cover, green manure and other
crops now being grown on British farms.
British field crops: a pocket guide to the
identification, history and uses of arable crops
in Great Britain. ISBN 978-0-9550466-2-9.
104 pages including identification keys and
glossary. RRP £12. Available from Summerfield
Books or directly from the author.
BSBIIWFS PRESIDENTS' PRIZE
Below is the text of the President's Prize
Award address, AGM, 2009:
"It is BSBl's President's turn to award the
Presidents' Prize this year, so it falls to me.
This is a truly invidious task as it has been a
good year for new books, especially those that
have really tried to communicate, from the
beautiful but technical British alpine
hawkweeds by David Tennant and Tim Rich to
the colourful Picture guide to the wild flowers
of north-east Yorkshire by Nan Sykes. As I
write this I await John Poland's new book on
vegetative identification, but I for one will
wish to show my respect for his work by using
his keys for a season or so before deciding
what value to place on it.
One that really captured my imagination was
Paul Green's Flora of County Waterford.
What sets it apart is not just the book, with its
welcoming section on Paul's favourite places
to botanise, but the project behind it, with so
much achieved in just ten years. He has
shared his data freely and efficiently, not just
through his Flora and with the BSBI databases,
but through the website of the fine new
Irish National Biodiversity Data Centre.
But I am not awarding him the prize as he
had one in 1997 with his previous Flora. I am
awarding the prize to a book that I purchased
MICHAEL BRAITHW AITE, President BSBI
at a railway station, but not the one in
Berwick! It is Wild food, by Ray Mears and
Gordon Hillman, and is the book of the BBC
TV series. This was about the only TV
programme I can remember that treats our
native British plants with genuine love and
attention to detail. The book goes further.
Gordon Hillman has worked for 23 years at
the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at
King's College, London, on the nutrient status
of wild plant foods, especially those used by
stone-age man, and his species-by-species
accounts are enthralling, combining a simple
appeal with real science. While Richard
Mabey covered some of this ground in 1972
with his Food for free, these authors put a
whole new slant on the subject. I can now
vouch for the value of Golden-saxifrage
Chrysosplenium as a salad plant and have had
fun nibbling the tasty stem-pith of Rosebay
Chamerion. Ray Mears, with his amazing
bush-craft, has lifted the whole to popular
fame. The two together have done a real
service to botany.
In awarding them the prize I will invite them
to mount an exhibit at our London exhibition
meeting in the autumn; meanwhile I am
putting my copy of the book on a table for you
to have a look at today".