The National Biodiversity Data Centre is currently collaborating with the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) to encourage people to submit their sightings of some common spring flowering plants.

You can submit sightings to their website here

Why?

Within both the Data Centre and the BSBI we are continually trying to improve our knowledge of Ireland’s flora. The more people who can help us do this the better. All records are very valuable, regardless of how common the species is. Within the spring flowering plants project we have identified 14 spring species. We are asking people to keep an eye out for these in their local area and to take a few minutes to submit their records on line to the Data Centre. We hope this will encourage new volunteers to submit plant data and help us build up our knowledge base.

What are they asking people to do?

You can submit your sightings of any plant species to the National Biodiversity Data Centre. In this project we are asking people to keep an eye out for 14 species specifically.

These species are:

1. Bluebell
2. Common Dog-violet
3. Cowslip
4. Early Dog-violet
5. Early-purple Orchid
6. Lady’s smock (Cuckooflower)
7. Lesser Celandine
8. Lords-and Ladies
9. Primrose
10. Toothwort
11. Wild Garlic
12. Winter Heliotrope
13. Wood Anemone
14. Wood Sorrel

You can find information and identification tips as well as downloadable spotter guides on their website.

When you see these species and are confident you have identified them correctly we would ask that you submit your sighting online https://records.biodiversityireland.ie using the spring flowers form. We will need information on the date, location name and species spotted. We will also need the grid reference which you can get online using a special tool we provide. Most people prefer to wait until the species is in flower to submit the record.

You don’t need to submit a photograph with your record unless you want to. The Early Dog-violet is not common. In this case we do ask that you submit a photograph of the spur for validation purposes.

What will happen to the data?
The data will be used by both the National Biodiversity Data Centre and the BSBI to drive plant conservation in Ireland.