Meeting report
After searching throughout Worcestershire, the Malvern area was chosen as the best base for the BBS’s spring 2004 field meeting. Most members booked their own accommodation but 20 stayed at the Christian Conference Centre in Malvern Link, which had meeting rooms and space for microscope work. On most evenings, members met in the Foley Arms in Great Malvern.
Worcestershire is a varied county with hills along its northern, western and southern borders enclosing agricultural land in the Severn and Avon valleys. In the north-west is the extensive woodland area of the Wyre Forest . The Teme, an unspoilt valley, runs through the western edge of the county and joins the Severn just south of Worcester . Wooded dingle valleys, often with travertine (tufa) deposits, run into the Teme.
Worcestershire has been bryologically under-recorded, and has been largely neglected since the days of J.B. Duncan ( Duncan , 1911). During the 1970s and early 1980s, Richard Fisk recorded throughout Worcestershire, and David Holyoak spent a year in the county in the early 1990s. The planning team (Tessa Carrick, Lorna Fraser, Harry Green, Ann Hill, Mark Lawley, Joy Ricketts and Rosemary Winnall) made many pleasurable outings, selecting sites for the BBS visits and simultaneously adding to the county’s species lists. During the BBS week ten further new records were added for Worcestershire (v.-c. 37), and there were eight ‘debracketings’. For Staffordshire (v.-c. 39), two new species were added and there were two ‘debracketings’.
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