Botanical University Challenge – Annual botanical knowledge contest between university students

Botanical University Challenge

Image of 8 colourful flowers

An annual contest of botanical knowledge between teams of UK and Irish university students.

Dates for #BUC2024 are three on-line rounds in February 2024 (14, 21, 28 starting 2 pm each day) and a live final in August 2024. Tickets for the livestream and live event will be available. There will be a Student Botany Festival open to all BUC2024 contestants following the live final.

The contest grew to 25 teams in 2023 that was held on-line with the final live hosted by University of Nottingham. BUC started in 2016 as a contest between 5 teams held at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. In 2021 it went online and 15 teams competed from around the UK, from Aberdeen to Southampton. In 2022 the number grew and included a team from Ireland. How many will there be in #BUC2024?

To enter a team

Teams represent their institution and consist of 4 students registered on a degree course, along with 1 or 2 reserves. To enter a team, complete this form before 19 January 2024.

Our Sponsors

We are grateful for support from the New Phytologist Foundation, Gatsby Foundation and the British Ecological Society and Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland in 2023. We also thank the Field Studies Council for providing publications as prizes in 2022 and 2023.

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The latest issue of The Thymes, official newslette

The latest issue of The Thymes, official newsletter of Botanical University Challenge has an article on careers with plants from the Countryside Jobs Service pointing out the value of less usual skills e.g. climbing, being comfortable on water. These are sufficiently important that the Plant Science degree at Edge Hill University has a tree canopy access module that involves practical climbing trees!

www.edgehill.ac.uk/course/plant-science/

@countrysidejobs @edgehilluniversity

#careerswithplants #careers #TheThymes #BUC2024 #plants #loveplants

Latest issue of The Thymes, newsletter of Botanica

Latest issue of The Thymes, newsletter of Botanical University Challenge has an interview with John Warren
about his forthcoming book 'Frustrating Flowers and Puzzling Plants'. Available in January 2024 wherever you buy new books!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=N_GP0B_-Pj0

#TheThymes #newsletter #book #flowers #plants #YouTube #loveplants

Hot from the computer! The Thymes issue 5, newslet

Hot from the computer! The Thymes issue 5, newsletter of Botanical University Challenge. Read about 2024 competition, including how to enter. More memories of BUC2023. Taster questions! Get your copy from:

https://botanicaluniversitychallenge.co.uk/the-thymes/

#BUC2024 #TheThymes #newsletter #quiz #botany #plants #loveplants

Botanical University Challenge 2024!! Dates now se

Botanical University Challenge 2024!! Dates now set. February: Two knock-out rounds on-line to pick 8 teams for on-line quarterfinal. August: Semifinal and Final live, hosted Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum. All streamed on YouTube, starting 2 pm UK time.

Get the dates into your diaries now!

#BUC2024 #quiz #plants #loveplants

This Victorian table is practical, educational and

This Victorian table is practical, educational and also could stimulate conversation. The top is made of several different sorts of wood.
In centre are 9 samples of sugar, rice, maize, maybe gold, and others.

Some birds store #fruits and #seeds which will gro

Some birds store #fruits and #seeds which will grow if not eaten. Jays live North Africa and Europe to Asia. They bury oak acorns & beechnuts in the ground. Acorn woodpeckers, western north & central America, store acorns in tree trunks. Maybe not so useful to the oaks?

#acorns #beechnuts #EuasianJay #acornwoodpecker #seeds #fruits #trees #plants #loveplants

Some animals cache food to eat later. When food is

Some animals cache food to eat later. When food is fruits or seeds, plants can grow from forgotten food. Squirrels can bury nuts, fruits where seed is protected by a solid, woody shell that does not open when mature (indehiscent). Method of seed dispersal. Zoochory.

#nuts #seeds #squirrels #plants #loveplants

Sea beans (family Fabaceae) have conspicuous seeds

Sea beans (family Fabaceae) have conspicuous seeds. Plants grow in the tropics but the seeds travel long distances on ocean currents. Can germinate after years in seawater. The name 'sea beans' is also used for Salicornia sp. sometimes. Succulent marsh-land plant, aka glasswort, marsh samphire. Its succulent green parts are eaten, not fruit or seeds. Family Amaranthaceae

#seabean #fabaceae #salicornia #glasswort #picklewort #samphire #Amaranthaceae #ocean #plants #loveplants

Some fruits and seeds are dispersed in water for s

Some fruits and seeds are dispersed in water for species that live in or near water bodies. Can travel long distances in ocean currents. They can float or be submerged. Hydrochory.

#seed #fruit #sea #ocean #plants #loveplants

Plants are not squeamish. Some fruits evolved to b

Plants are not squeamish. Some fruits evolved to be eaten by animals, seeds released during digestion and then dispersed in dung. Seeds have to avoid or have protection from being chewed to pieces or fully digested. In fact, digestion may be required to release seed from fruit, and aid germination. Often from trees or shrubs. Endozoochory.

#seed #fruit #digestion #germination #trees# shrubs #plants #loveplants

Seeds can rely on air for dispersal. Different sha

Seeds can rely on air for dispersal. Different shapes. Beautiful gliding seeds of Javan cucumber from Indonesia & Malayan archipelago. Vortex ring from pappus of hairs on dandelion - and dandelion clocks! Wind-blown seeds of white fir, gymnosperm. Fluffy seeds of great willowherb. Anemochory.

#seeds #float #dandelionclock #dispersal #plant #loveplants

Dispersal is a role of plant seeds, so young plant

Dispersal is a role of plant seeds, so young plants can colonise new habitats. Many dispersal methods. Wood avens/Herb Bennet (Geum urbanum) seeds with hooks fragment from ripe fruit cluster and attach to animals. Taken away to new locations.

Technical names have been given to methods of seed dispersal. Using animals is termed epizoochory.

#seeds #fruit #ripe #plant #loveplants

How do seeds develop from fertilised ovule in sper

How do seeds develop from fertilised ovule in spermatophytes (plants that produce seeds i.e. angiosperms, gymnosperms)? Generalised stages as tissue and organs develop for mature seed. Many differences in detail between plant groups.

#seed #angiosperm #gymnosperm #tissues #organs #embryo #endosperm #plant #loveplants

The main food store in monocot cereal seeds is end

The main food store in monocot cereal seeds is endosperm. Contains starch, protein, maybe oils. Formed after a separate fertilisation event from the embryo (usually 3 sets chromosomes). Double fertilisation. In many monocots it stays in there, until used up by the germinating seed.

#seed #seeds #endosperm #doublefertilisation #starch #cereal #monocot #maize #corn #plant #loveplants

Orchids, over 28,000 species, do not pack food sup

Orchids, over 28,000 species, do not pack food supplies into their seeds. Their pods contain thousands of tiny seeds. Each has a tiny embryo and minimal food. It float away in air, and on landing in soil has to find a fungal partner to feed them.

No hard coat, virtually no food reserve. On landing they have to find a fungus to feed the embryo until the new orchid plant has leaves. This can be several years. Some species remain dependent on fungus all their lives.

Orchids produce seed pods containing thousands, even millions, of these seeds. Most will never grow but a very few will land somewhere suitable.

#orchid #seed #fungus #plants #loveplants

What is a seed? Good question. A fertilised ovule.

What is a seed? Good question. A fertilised ovule. Will contain the embryo that develops into a plant, and usually a food reserve to support the embryo until it can photosynthesise (or otherwise acquire food).

Located inside a fruit in flowering plants (angiosperms), and on the surface of leaves or cones in gymnosperms (name means 'naked seed')

#seed #ovary #ovule #plant #loveplants

What is a fruit? Good question! A plant’s way to

What is a fruit? Good question! A plant’s way to get the next generation safely on its way. The ripe, fertilised ovary, containing 1 or more seeds (according to Stace). This structure gives some protection, means of dispersal & then support once seed germinates.

#fruit #seed #plant #loveplants

Apples are among the many fruits described technic

Apples are among the many fruits described technically as accessory fruits.

This means fruits that contain tissue derived from plant parts other than the ovary. These parts were often carpels, receptacles or sepals.

#fruit #apple #pear #fig #strawberry #plant #loveplants

The fruit of an apple is technically a pome. It is

The fruit of an apple is technically a pome. It is defined by a central core with several small seeds, surrounded by a tough membrane with an outer edible layer of flesh.

Typical of the Malinae within the Rosaceae. Better known as apples, pears, quinces, hawthorns, loquats & others.

#apple #pear #hawthorn #pome #fruit #tree #Rosaceae #Malinae #plant #loveplants

Apple bobbing is a game traditionally played aroun

Apple bobbing is a game traditionally played around Halloween. Pick up apples with teeth alone that are floating in a bowl of water or hanging from a string. There are 1000s of apple varieties (Malus domestica).

#Halloween #apples #fruit #traditionalgame #plants #loveplants

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