Rare Plant Register VC63

A Rare Plant Register (RPR) is a mini Flora, containing details of just the rarest species in the county, together with up-to-date information on how they are faring. It is intended as a reference to actively assist nature conservation planning as much as being a Flora of wider interest for botanists. The register is also intended to contribute to the national initiative of the Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI), which aims to produce rare plant registers for all of the Vice Counties (VC) of the British Isles

More detail can be found on the BSBI website, along with most of the RPRs produced to date, including  the VC61 South-east Yorkshire RPR. A blog describing the preparation of a RPR can be found at Botanising in Huntingdonshire, Yorkshire and Beyond by the Mid-west Yorkshire VC64 Vice County Recorder, Dave Broughton.  Nottinghamshire have also produced a Rare Plant Register for VC 56 which can be downloaded here

One of the stated aims of the South Yorkshire Botany Group was to assist a Red Data Plant Group. Geoffrey T D Wilmore was the VC63 recorder when the SYBG was started, and he and other recorders started to revisit known sites and collect data on habitat and associated species etc. In September 2012, Geoffery T D Wilmore circulated a paper entitled ‘ A Provisional Vascular Plant Red Data List for VC63 (S.W. Yorkshire)’. This can be seen here A list of species to be targeted appears here.

This work has been taken over by the present VC63 recorder, Louise Hill. She reports that progress of the RPR has been put on the back-burner for the moment as we concentrate on the run-up to the end of the Atlas 2020 recording period.  In future the preference will be to look at suitable habitats in previously under-recorded areas rather than to keep revisiting known populations.