2016 and Beyond - the project beginnings

In the dark and distant past of the early 2000s, I had the idea of producing an online identification guide to the Flora of East Anglia. Both Norfolk and Suffolk have excellent county atlas floras that illustrate and comment upon the flowering plants that are at large in the region. As guidance for where to find the plants of the region, they are invaluable and you really should own them already!! However, with space ever at a premium in books, few species are illustrated and anyone who is new to the wonders of plants will be wrestling with identification.

So, the idea is to provide an online resource that does not compete with the county floras, but instead complements them. The printed floras give you the distribution (as well as much interesting information on the regional histories of many species), while the website helps you with the identification. This is a major project, with over 2,500 plant species to be found, photographed and uploaded to the site, so it has already been no small undertaking!! Having wandered off abroad for a few years, it was not until 2016 that I actually began to put together the website, while many of the earlier photos are proving to be in need of replacement - digital technology is improving at an alarming rate! However, two years of uploading photos after much pondering on the design and lay out, now means that a good chunk of the species are covered and more will come.

Originally, I planned on keeping the site under wraps until it was ready to go 'live' and more or less complete, but then I figured that actually, maybe it's nicer to get people involved in the gradual development as more species get added and we stagger towards that seemingly unreachable number of species! So this blog is an invitation to enjoy the process. Follow this blog as I put up posts when new pages are added to the website - and enjoy having a go at using the site to help you identify the region's amazing flora. I'll also make posts about my adventures in the field as I track down species not yet photographed - and even occasionally post on new finds and species that may not even be in the atlases! 

Even in winter there's much to be done! Today, I was in South Norfolk, checking on some Eucalyptus trees that were clearly originally planted, but which have been left to become established and can probably now be considered part of the local flora (more on that some other time!). However, my winter trip was to get flower photos and it seems I was a few weeks too early - so another trip will be needed in a few weeks' time.

The flowers may not have been ready, but the distinctive bark was looking great. This is Cider Gum (Eucalyptus gunnii) which is overwhelmingly the commonest eucalypt planted in the UK and which occasionally turns up as a recordable plant in the wider countryside. The bark peels off in plates, revealing shades of grey and pink and is a little like a grey version of London Plane.

My particular interest in this stand of eucalypts (which I chanced upon last summer) is that the plantation is half made up of Shining Gum (Eucalyptus nitens). This species has never been recorded in East Anglia before, so I may have my name on a new find - which is always fun!! Shining Gum has very different bark to Cider Gum, as the outer layers peel off in long, vertical strips.