Joshua Styles
Plant obsessive, restoration ecologist and science communicator 🏳️🌈
- I’ve just released deets for a new wetland ID course, with a special emphasis on lowland fens! 😍🌱 Find out more here: britishbotany.co.uk/products/rea...
- 🚨Hoylake beach update🚨 After a LONG six years, we’re finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel!! An agreement has finally been reached between @NaturalEngland and @WirralCouncil which means around 2% of the 41ha of vegetated foreshore at Hoylake will be cleared.
- It’s been one hell of a battle over the past 6 years. We started with Natural England consenting to widespread herbicide use across a SSSI ending in 2019 (left). From there, proposals shifted from removing all vegetated areas, down to 40%, then 10%, then 5%, and finally to this.
- Fantastic work @wtscotsocial.bsky.social!! 😍🌱👏👏👏
- Over 400 acorns sown so far, collected from veteran oaks nearby, with lots more to go! English oak (Quercus robur) supports >2,500 species, making it one of Britain’s most important trees for biodiversity — yet it’s far less common than it should be in Liverpool 🌱❤️
- Absolutely the moon! Endangered dyer’s greenweed (Genista tinctoria) typically clings on in scraps of ancient grassland, but today we reintroduced 70+ plants I grew over summer onto this beaut Lancs Wildlife Trust reserve. Huge thanks to Stephen Cartwright & all who helped! 🌱❤️
- Absolutely the moon! Endangered dyer’s greenweed (Genista tinctoria) typically clings on in scraps of ancient grassland, but today we reintroduced 70+ plants I grew over summer onto this beaut @Lancswildlife reserve. Huge thanks to Stephen Cartwright & all who helped! 🌱❤️
- A major peat-former on fens and transition mires, bottle sedge (Carex rostrata) was all but extinct in Greater Manchester… Having been growing an absolute tonne of this beaut all summer, today was the day it was planted out in this recovering @Lancswildlife reserve 😍🌱
- Beautiful chicken-of-the-woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) on a veteran oak by me in Liverpool today 😍
- First time ever seeing this absolute stunnerrr in Cumbria today - few-flowered sedge (Carex pauciflora)! A specialist of blanket mires and poor fens, this lil beastie can be found at <15 places in England where it’s red-listed Near-Threatened 🌱❤️
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- Has anyone else noticed it? After years of waiting, it looks like we’re going to have a mast year with our native oaks!!! I’ll be collecting acorns from veteran and ancient trees around Liverpool later this year for anyone or nurseries who would like some and would like to get in touch 🌱❤️
- Spotted the striking (and pungent) bog myrtle (Myrica gale) in a Cumbrian upland fen yesterday. Once common on the Manchester Mosses before industry wiped it out over a century ago, Lancs Wildlife Trust and I have been working to reintroduce it since 2019 😍🌱
- Last recorded >150 years ago in 1874, I was absolutely shocked to find oblong-leaved sundew (Drosera intermedia) at Abbots Moss in Cheshire!! Not only is this beastie both rare and red-listed, this will soon probably be the last population in the entire county! 😱🌱❤️
- A once-common and abundant plant of grasslands, Dyer’s greenweed (Genista tinctoria) needs help. For #NationalMeadowsDay, I’ve put a guide together on the propagation, reintroduction and management of this functionally important & imperilled beastie: nwrpi.weebly.com/uploads/9/4/...
- A day early for #NationalMeadowsDay, but just look at this ancient wildflower meadow I stumbled upon in Staffordshire the other day! Grasslands should be full of life like this beauty, but often fall silent. Restoring them is vital if we want to see nature recover 🌱❤️
- AMAZING NEWS!!!! Known from less than 10 places in England and just one site left in Cheshire, this beaut saltmarsh flat-sedge (Blysmus rufus) was found for the first time today on Hoylake beach on Wirral!!! So exciting eeee 😍🌱
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- A quick reminder that gardens can make such important spaces for biodiversity. 4 years on and things have come quite a way for me… - over 30 marsh and spotted orchids ✅ - rocketing wildflower species richness ✅ - huge abundance of pollinators and other invertebrates ✅
- Not seen in this part of northwest England for over 50 years - it was amaze to find Common Cow-wheat (Melampyrum pratense)! Unlike its cousin, yellow rattle, this beastie doesn’t parasitise the roots of grasses. Instead, it goes for woody plants, including oaks 😍🌱
- When I first moved into my house, there was a single marsh orchid that flowered in this meadow in 2022… After managing it, we’ve just had another record breaking year with 28 in flower now plus lots of other incredible wildlife making this place home!! Chuffed!!! 🌱❤️
- Regionally Endangered in north-west England and last seen in Liverpool in 1926, today marks the first day that Dyer’s Greenweed (Genista tinctoria) has flowered here! Reintroduced with permission to this @lpoolcouncil.bsky.social grassland, today, it’s thriving! 😍🌱
- Not a great year for a lot of insects, but wow…can’t remember the last time I had this many bug splats on my car! 😱😍
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- Absolute shocker to find Toothwort (Lathraea squamaria), a rare and completely parasitic plant, at Manc Airport the other day. It hasn’t been seen here since 1965, while it now has only a single stronghold left in Cheshire 😨😍🌱
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- Last seen in Liverpool >100 years ago and found at two places Merseyside - it was a shock to find this beauttt at @nationaltrust.bsky.social Speke Hall! It’s Spring Sedge (Carex caryophyllea) - a reliable indicator of ancient grassland and heaths 😍🌱
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- Nearly a year after I raised concerns about the @nationaltrust management of Speke Hall’s dry heath-the only example of its kind left in Merseyside- I met with them today as they committed to doubling its area! An amazing step for one of Merseyside’s most endangered habitats 🌱❤️
