Adventives and Aliens News

might ‘look fine to the expert but may scare lesser mortals’ and ‘the illusion of excessive learnedness has prevailed and has undoubtedly hampered the growth of the Society’.

Almost three years later, there was a response on the subject of popular articles in Watsonia, by one of its editorial panel. ‘From time-to-time voices are raised complaining of the scarcity in Watsonia of articles of a more popular nature. This is a matter which the editors regret as much as the general reader. It is certainly not a question of editorial policy, but it is due purely and simply to a lack of such papers’ (BSBI News 8, November 1974).

McClintock concluded his analysis of the situation: ‘only by increasing membership can the Society afford to give members the services and information they need … it must either dwindle to a largely professional membership … or expand to fill its role of fully representing British field botany’. Introducing BSBI News, he stated, ‘It is to assist with this latter aspect that this new publication has been started’. Laid out point by point, verbatim, it is quite clear that he well understood the vacuum that BSBI News should fill. • Watsonia … will include the more enduring material but the information in the Newsletters [sic] will not be ephemeral, and members should keep them for reference. It is intended to publish an index at intervals. • We will be able to get news [sic] out much more rapidly with the quicker and cheaper printing method. • The precise contents will depend in large measure on the wishes and contributions of members. • The Editor wants news of people, when they join, when they move, get new jobs, marry, breed, get ill or well, go to interesting places, what they discover or think or seek, and so on.

He also wants shorter notes of all sorts. • Members should feel that here is the place where they can see their contributions quickly in print, voice opinions and be in contact with what is going on.

McClintock, who later (1997–2000) uniquely became its President too, considered the Wild Flower Society was ‘in no way BSBI’s rival’ adding that ‘I have long been proud to be associated with it’. He then noted that ‘the publications of nearly all societies such as ours … are their main means of contact with all their members’.

Accordingly it is difficult not to suspect that he might have modelled BSBI News on the other society’s publication, the Wild Flower Magazine. This goes back to the late 1890s and originally had six issues a year, but there were three in McClintock’s time. The January–April 1971 issue, no 360, has 40 printed pages and together with their usual branch and meeting reports, there are six pages of book reviews by McClintock, and there is an announcement of a joint BSBI/WFS meeting in Guernsey, to be led by him. Even though it did not first appear until the ninth issue of BSBI News in November 1974, BSBI’s long-running Adventive News had its roots in the Wild Flower Magazine: McClintock wrote the annual WFS Exotics column for 1959 to 1974 inclusive.

In the second issue of BSBI News in July 1972, McClintock begins his President’s introduction, ‘The contents of BSBI News No. 1 seem to have met with general approval’. In the fifth issue (May 1973), before handing over to Max Walters, he writes about how a record increase in membership occurred (in 1972) after three years of decline and an increase in subscriptions. The retiring editor offered his thanks, ‘I must mention Mr. David McClintock, whose enthusiasm must be seen to be believed’. Whatever hesitancy within the Society there may have been, McClintock must have felt thoroughly vindicated.

Introduction of line drawings

The next advance was in issue 9 (March 1975) which is the first to have a line drawing of an alien plant on the cover (see Figure 2 in Part 1 of this article in the last issue). This practice persisted as the norm for 30 years, after which colour photographs were used. Kenneth Beckett (the second editor), explained that an accurate line drawing was often needed to

Settling in: the first few issues of BSBI News

Figure 1. Issue 12 (February 1976) showing an illustration of Stachys annua (Annual Yellow-woundwort) by Rosemary Wise. This style of cover (invariably depicting less familiar aliens) continued until issue 100 in September 2005, after which colour photographs were used. clinch an identification, though he left it unstated that for native plants such drawings were already available, so he would have had alien plants in mind. Accordingly he took a proposal to the Publications Committee ‘to include a line drawing in News from time to time’. WFS had already been doing this since 1973 for Dr J.L. Mason’s Illustrated Catalogue of Bird Seed Aliens.

In issue 10 (September 1975), which reverted to the initial unillustrated style, Beckett admitted that ‘a front cover drawing will not be a regular feature’ but suggested that it might appear with alternate issues. Now, he was explicit that ‘ideally illustrations should be of critical plants or little-known adventives’. Issue 11 (November 1975) has a drawing, but it is inside, though it could perfectly well have replaced the contents on the cover. The editor now specifically sought ‘further examples of [drawings of] our adventive plants’. From issue 12 (February 1976) the style became fixed (Figure 1), though there was no explanation given how this came about. The first issue (January 1972) has a letter about some interesting adventives on the family farm of Lady Anne Brewis and how a ‘stinker’ of a botanist committed trespass and dug up some on two occasions: she called the note ‘a shoddy code of conduct’, in reference to the origin of the adventives from ‘shoddy’ and the official Code of Conduct that had been issued with Watsonia in July 1971. The early issues also give updates on the progress of the Wild Plants Protection Bill, later passed as the Conservation of Wild Creatures and Wild Plants Act 1975. This subject deserves a fuller account, but I will only mention (again) the disquieting public exchange between a mildmannered Bristolian and the might of the Conservation Committee about whether BSBI’s poster of ‘twenty species of very rare British plants as a contribution towards their conservation’ should be destroyed or reprinted (Issue 7, May 1974).

In the words of Kenneth Beckett, in the 9th issue (November 1974): A frequent lament of honorary editors … is the difficulty of obtaining suitable articles. One can cajole or exhort members in an endeavour to extract suitable prose and finally write half of it oneself rather than admit defeat … Imagine my surprise and pleasure when taking over

News to find a regular supply of items steadily coming in without any sort of prompting. Long may it continue.

In issue 14 of December 1976 the new editor Edgar Wiggins pleaded that ‘it would be unfortunate if “BSBI News” were to become the monopoly of a small coterie of dedicated specialists’; as if as a warning, for he continued, ‘Fortunately there is no sign of this happening at present’. Thus Wiggins kept the ‘low profile’ and avoided ‘the brickbats that might be aimed at him’ and changed little except for giving us more News.

With issue 14 of December 1976 Kenneth Beckett retired, due to increasing commitments in horticultural journalism, remarking: I am pleased to have been associated with these early years of News. Its beginnings with John Elsey were hesitant and there was a not inconsiderable amount of quiet opposition to the whole project from some of the more professional and elder members. Hopefully the years have proved them wrong and members in general now find

News an outlet for comment and a vehicle for information exchange hitherto missing in the B.S.B.I. organisation.

May it long continue and go from strength to strength.

Conclusions: over and out

David E. Allen, in his ever-readable history of our society, The Botanists (1986), later concluded of BSBI News that ‘this periodical has turned out to be extremely popular’.

Dick David’s masterful Presidential address in 1980 (Watsonia 13: 173–179) entitled ‘Gentlemen and Players’, takes up the matter of internal differences within the Society, at a time when amateurs and professionals still used to alternate as President. ‘Are gentlemen and players still playing in the same match?’, he asked, eventually concluding ‘Not only are gentlemen and players still in the same game – they are on the same side’.

In my own case, in September 1984 after advising the Nature Conservancy Council’s Deputy Regional Officer F. Russell Gomm that I was abandoning teaching biology and taking up accountancy, he wished me ‘good luck’ and added, ‘I have no doubt that natural history will continue as one of your main interests and that you will be known as one of the “amateurs” that knows far more than the “professionals”’. In time of course there could be no grounds for such a conflict: as Tim Rich says in BSBI News 149 (January 2022) ‘there are currently no taxonomists specialising in the British flora employed in any of our museums or universities’. We occupy a common ground as equals, neither knowing nor caring what the day job of our botanical colleagues might be.

Dedication

For the late Mary Briggs, who wrote BSBI News 100 not out! in issue 100 (September 2005), and left me the difficult to obtain first issue, and to David Allen who continuously encouraged and inspired my interest in the history of the BSBI and of the history of botany, and of course still does.

Clive Lovatt

Clive Lovatt was the Vice-county Recorder for West Gloucestershire (v.c. 34) and the Administrative Officer of the Society between 2011 and 2016. He submitted these two articles shortly before he died earlier this year. His obituary is included in this issue (p. 78). It is hoped to publish a full list of the print publications in the BSBI Archive (and those being sought) in a future issue of BSBI News. See Clive Stace’s note in the last issue (No. 150, April 2022, p. 76). Electronic versions of BSBI News, Watsonia, the Proceedings and some other publications are available in the BSBI publications archive: bsbi.org/ publications/archive.

This seems an appropriate place to mention that anyone thinking of submitting an article should first read the guidelines linked on the BSBI News website (under ‘Submit an article’): bsbi.org/bsbi-news, or contact me for advice on subject matter, length, layout and illustrations, etc. For authors of longer, more technical articles (with tables, figures, maps and long reference lists) I can send more detailed instructions. Also please get in touch if you intend to produce maps for publication from the BSBI maps website (database.bsbi.org/maps). John Norton (Editor)