East Perthshire - Botanical Society of the British Isles

2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to Jim McIntosh, Scottish Officer of the BSBI, for his help in too
many ways to mention but in particular for his detailed comments on the first draft
and for his help with the production of the Register. Bob Ellis also helped with the
production. The Register is a compilation of records that have been made by many
recorders, be they members of the BSBI, Perth Society of Natural Science, SNH staff
or contractors, or visiting botanists, and thanks are due to all. David McCosh went to
considerable trouble over ensuring that the Hieracium section was correct and Bert
Reid supplied the relevant section of the national Taraxacum database. Helen Taylor
(SNH) allowed use of the data from the 2010 survey of Juniper in Perthshire. Certain
people have greatly enhanced the Recorder’s knowledge of plants in the Vicecounty,
prime among whom are Leslie Tucker (willows) and Nick Stewart (water
plants). Margaret Bradshaw enabled us to record the genus Alchemilla more
accurately. Andy Scobie and Theo Loizou kindly supplied datasets in response to
the first edition. Finally thanks are due to the many landowners, tenants, keepers and
others who have welcomed botanists on to their ground.
3 WATSONIAN VICE-COUNTIES
These date from 1852, when they were set up “to provide a set of unit areas more
equal in their dimensions than the counties, ‘whose extreme inequality of size was
most inconvenient and objectionable’ ”(Dandy, 1969). The system has long been
adopted as standard for biological recording in this country. An important feature is
that the boundaries are constant, not changing with the political whims of succeeding
generations. Most of East Perth lies within what was originally Perthshire and is now
Perth & Kinross, with political changes only affecting parts of the eastern boundary.
The southern boundary is the Firth of Tay, the western boundary is the Tay –
Tummel – Garry river system, and the northern boundary abuts on Inverness-shire
and Aberdeenshire following Grampian watersheds. The eastern boundary,
however, follows older lines in some areas: a bulge to the east includes Fowlis and
Piper Dam, but to the north of this the Vice-county of Angus bulges westwards into
Perth & Kinross to include a block around Gaskhill, Lintrose, Hallyburton and Kettins.
There is another, smaller deviation from the modern political boundary to the north of
the Forest of Alyth around Blacklunans.
4 PLANT RECORDING IN EAST PERTH
Records since 1970 only are included. In that year a decision was made by the
Botanical section of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science to record plants on a
5x5 km (quadrant) basis with a view to eventually producing a new Flora of
Perthshire. In 2006 this system was altered and tetrad (2x2 km) recording began.
The change was made in order to comply with accepted biological recording methods
over the wider UK and especially with practice that had been adopted by the BSBI
nationwide. Prior to this the perception had been that it would be impracticable to
cover Perthshire fully on a 2x2 km square basis, as there are too many remote areas
and too few botanists. This remains the case and no complete tetrad map of every
species will ever be produced in a reasonable time-scale. Even an incomplete tetrad
map, however, conveys more useful information on habitat use and distribution than
a complete quadrant one.
As far as possible, using knowledge of routes and sites, records on the quadrant
recording cards have been reallocated to tetrads. The two systems are not entirely
compatible, however, as there are 9 tetrads in each 10x10 km square (hectad) which
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