Course: Botanical Skills - HAU

This 2.5 day intermediate course explores a range of botanical skills that open up the world of plants for identification and surveying.

Core botanical skills are essential for successful surveying of habitats whether using UKHab or NVC classification. The ability to identify plants successfully enables the differentiation between many habitats, provides the foundation for site assessment, and the description of the habitats.

This course includes:

• Comparative botanical terminology
• Classification of plant families
• Field and lab identification
• Collecting and preserving specimens
• Plant recording schemes

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Critically analyse and distinguish the morphological features of a wide range of plant taxa.
• Demonstrate expertise in employing dichotomous keys, flora, and other botanical resources for species-level identification, incorporating the use of comparative terminology and critical evaluation of diagnostic features versus general characters.
• Design and conduct field and laboratory research for plant identification, including the collection, preservation, and validation of voucher specimens.

Residential and non-residential booking options are available.

This course is eligible for a student discount. If you are a current student, please use the discount code BioStudent20 at checkout for 20% off.

Please refer to the Field Studies Council website for further information and to book.