An open letter to the BSBI President-elect, Micheline Sheehy Skeffington

down onto the beach. It didn’t take long before I found the Danish Scurvygrass, on the bare dry rocky areas of the cliff-face. It was surprisingly abundant, but only near the east side of the monad, and I couldn’t find it in any other monads in the hectad. Whilst walking along the beach I noticed a number of sedge rosettes on the rockface, and instantly thought they could be Carex punctata (Dotted Sedge), just because of the greenish-yellow colour of the leaves. I had no field guides on me, and I didn’t want to collect a specimen. On returning home and checking my database I was surprised, as I had forgotten, that I had found one clump of Dotted Sedge on the Co. Waterford side of the estuary at Creadan in 2005. I returned in early July to take a look at my sedge. Sure enough it was as predicted, Carex punctata, a new native sedge for Co. Wexford. It was fruiting nicely, and it was found in two separate small populations, one consisting of 14 clumps, and the other of seven. Carex punctata is fairly common on the Irish coast in the far southwest, South Kerry (H1), North Kerry (H2) and West Cork (H3). It is rare along the rest of the coast of Co. Cork, and hasn’t been seen for over 20 years from Mid Cork (H4), and over 120 years from East Cork (H5). It is known from 17 sites in the neighbouring county of Waterford (H6). There is also a cluster of sites on the west coast from West Galway (H16), and one from Co. Clare (H9). As the new site for Carex punctata was from the most eastern county along the south coast I thought I must have the most eastern site in Ireland. I was shocked to find it can be claimed by Co. Waterford. The headland of Creadan Head stretches out in Waterford Harbour for over 1km. Where the Dotted Sedge grows is 2 metres east of the Ballyhack site. 2 metres isn’t much, but it is just enough to be able to say Co. Waterford has the most easterly site in Ireland for Dotted Sedge.

An open letter to the BSBI President-elect, Micheline Sheehy Skeffington

John Faulkner, Orchard Road, Lough Gall, Co. Armagh

Email: jsf@globalnet.co.uk

Dear Micheline

Congratulations on becoming BSBI’s President-elect! Your election is very opportune, and I hope you are looking forward to the challenge of taking over when Lynne Farrell steps down at the next AGM. Being President is a wonderful role as you have no job description to follow and you set your own targets. The staff and Board of Trustees do the donkey work. Your boss is the membership as a whole, but three thousand people can’t tell you what to do, so you just listen and get on with it. The downside, of course, is that you are not paid a cent but what does that matter when you are enjoying yourself?

You will have the aftermath (we all hope!) of Covid to cope with. Despite the devastation it’s caused, it has given BSBI opportunities no one could have anticipated. Who better to take these on than you? You will be only the third President in the Society’s long history from Ireland, and only the second from “Ireland” in the geopolitical sense. The first was, of course, the inimitable David Webb. That was something I only realised when, a few years ago, I was invited to take on the task. Another was that there had been only one female president, Mary Briggs. To me, that was even more surprising and disappointing, mainly on principle, but also because it did not at all reflect the enormous contribution that so many women have made to botany and to BSBI. All that was, of course, before Lynne’s election, but you will understand much better than I that there remains more to do to redress that particular balance. I found the prospect of taking on the Presidency from a base in Ireland was indeed somewhat daunting: frequent travel to GB to mingle with myriads of other botanists steeped in the British flora and the history, haunts and habits of the Society. My familiarity was mainly with the modest scale of the botanical community of Ireland and particularly with the intimate but tiny one in the North. But it was an opportunity not to be sneezed at. The travel could be combined with visits to family living in GB. So I took the plunge! One of the targets I set was to attend at least one meeting of each of the BSBI Committees over the two-year term, and also both of the AGMs. This experience was enlightening. For example, in Ireland we tend to think that Vice-counties in GB have hundreds of active botanical recorders. We forget that, like Ireland, many parts of GB are also sparsely populated with botanists; we are not unique in that regard. It’s worth bearing in mind that more than 50% of all BSBI Vice-counties are in Scotland or Ireland, and only 37% are in England. On the other hand, our flora is somewhat different and our social and legal environment – both North and South – is in some ways very different. I found that the Country Committees reflected well the differences within the domain of BSBI – which is of course their raison d’être. The Standing Committees, however, sometimes struggled to do so. Most of them were dominated by botanists from England, with few or none from Ireland, and their discussions often ignored us. Covid has changed the rules of engagement. Within Ireland, we have hardly been able to meet face-to-face for 2 years. On the other hand, on-line meetings have burgeoned. Whereas attending a meeting in, say, London could take up the best part of two whole days, cost a small fortune, and pump many kilos of carbon into the atmosphere, it can now be done from the comfort of your home for negligible cost. It is not a full substitute for meeting in person, but the relative convenience is amazing, and as a consequence you can do so much more. You will have your own agenda. I am sure it will share at least one feature with mine: ensuring that Ireland and Irish botanists play a full role as equal partners in the BSBI enterprise. We’ve come a long way in recent years. The total membership of BSBI has grown substantially, the Irish membership even more so. The Society has improved its structures, embraced the IT revolution, and is on the verge of launching an exciting new Atlas. Our staff are superb at complementing the input from volunteers. Is this a time to consolidate? Or to look outwards to those who hardly notice plants? Or to seek closer ties with other botanists in Europe? Or with those whose responsibility is conservation? Or just