Juanita Browne: How to identify wildflowers and why you should record your findings

Even absolute beginners can help in this massive nationwide project to record Ireland's rich diversity of spring flowers

Even those who can't readily identify all of Ireland's wild spring flowers (this one's a primrose) can take part, as the National Biodiversity Data Centre website provides photos of them. Picture: Juanita Browne

Do you like flowers? Would you like to help to contribute to knowledge on Ireland’s biodiversity while you’re out and about? The National Biodiversity Data Centre and the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) welcome your records of spring flowers. This is a joint project between the BSBI and the data centre which began in 2017, to target 20 easily-identifiable spring flowers for recording, along with the provision of a special online recording form.

Not only does it encourage people to record their observations of early-flowering species that can be lacking in data but, like all recording, is valuable as it contributes to furthering plant conservation in Ireland. Many of the spring flowers chosen for the project are very distinctive, making it a good way for those new to recording to get involved and improve their identification skills.

Juanita Browne

What I love about this project is you can take part from anywhere — you could spot these wildflowers in your local park, on a road verge, even in your garden. And you don’t have to have an extensive knowledge of Ireland’s wild plants. Most of us can confidently tell a bluebell from a cowslip! Other target flowers include primrose, lesser celandine, and coltsfoot. Pictures are provided for each species and you’ll easily learn to identify each.

Steps

Go out and look for spring flowers. Once you’re happy with their identification, please go to Ireland’s citizen science portal at BiodiversityIreland.ie, and fill in the online recording form for ‘Spring Flowers’ This requires: 

• Who — your name and email address; 
• When — the date you made your observation; 
• Where — location name, county and spatial reference which is straightforward to plot; 
• What — the flower name.

According to Oisín Duffy, National Biodiversity Data Centre: "The spring flowers project is an ideal initiative for those looking to get involved with biological recording. Check our project website for the full list of species and identification resources and submit your sightings through our dedicated recording form on Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal." 

To find out more, visit the Spring Flowers Survey on the Biodiversity Ireland site. 

Wildflowers

A lovely new 13-part documentary series, Faoi Bhláth, has just begun on RTÉ and will help you to learn all about our wildflowers. 

Presenter Aedín Ní Thiarnaigh travels the parks, lakes, bogs, meadows, and mountains of Ireland to uncover our rich array of wildflowers, and learns about the folklore associated with them and their uses in cookery, medicine, and craft. In addition to discussing the folklore attached to each flower, Aedín also explores their past uses, in cooking, healing, as dyes, and even in craft making. Watch Faoi Bhláth on Monday nights, 7.30pm on RTÉ 1.

Another amazing learning resource is WildflowersOfIreland.net created by author and wildflower expert Zoe Devlin. This super website allows you to search by flower colour, which is a great help for beginners, and check out Zoe’s beautiful books including a field guide you can take with you on your wildflower search.

• Juanita Browne has written a number of wildlife books, including My First Book of Irish Animals and The Great Big Book of Irish Wildlife. Contact the author at [e-mail]