Hazel Graves writes: 

The first Meeting of the Leicester Lit & Phil Natural History Section of 2026 took place on Wednesday 7th January at the Quaker Meeting House, Queen’s Road, Leicester.  A large audience of between 40 and 50 people had been drawn to the very local topic, Leicester City Flora - All change? by Russell Parry.

First there were some items brought in by members for discussion.

• Ivan Pedley brought in a set of displayed feathers of a Goldfinch from a male Sparrowhawk kill in his garden where he has about 20 bird feeders. He also brought his previously displayed Jay feathers obtained in a similar way for new members to see. 

• Judith Egan brought in more lichens from her visit to the orchard of The Centre for Alternative Technology Charity (CAT) Canolfan y Dechnoleg Amgen (CyDA) Machynlleth, Powys, Mid Wales, where she volunteers. There was an interesting variety, and Ivan was able to help with identification. 

Russell, the BSBI County Recorder for Vascular plants, was warmly welcomed and began his talk by explaining that, like several people in the audience, he had relentlessly “square-bashed” for the BSBI 2020 Flora Atlas, especially recording in the City of Leicester, his home patch, which unfortunately suffers from application of herbicide to kerbs, pavements etc.  He noticed that during the Covid shutdown when no spraying took place, the streets of Leicester abounded with a display of wild plants both native and alien.  This intrigued him and prompted him to study further.  He recruited a team of volunteers to examine in detail Leicester on a monad scale to the end of 2024.  He analysed this information, explored and collated previous records in the superb collection of flora compiled for Leicester over the years and published online “Leicester City Flora 1744-2024” available to view at Leicester City Flora 1744-2024 | NatureSpot. 

1658 taxa were classified as Native, Alien, Colonist, Cultivated, Denizen, Naturalised, Survivor, Casual, standard botanical terms as qualified in the publication. Species presence across the city was qualified as Extinct, Endangered, Decrease, Holding-on, Stalwart, Increase, Large increase, again terms defined in the publication.  Russell produced graphs, tables and examples of the changes he found.  He then discussed the reason for change, mostly human inspired such as expansion of the built-up area related to population expansion, drainage of open land, herbicide spraying of road and railway track sides, change from use of horse transport to petrol vehicles, gardeners’ choices, SUDS, warming climate. As our pre-industrial flora retreat under such pressures, new and interesting plants are arriving to take their place.

Russell would like this valuable base-line survey to be repeated in the future to look at continuing changes, especially to find out if some plants are adapting to fungicide use by selecting for quick turnaround ie growing and seeding before or in-between fungicide sprays. Following a question by Geoffrey Hall, he agreed that comparing this survey with similar from other cities would be worthwhile especially those with a port. 

Peter Smith rounded up the evening by complimenting Russell on this valuable project and advised people to look at the report online for further information.

Please note that for more information about Leicestershire Botany there is a section on the BSBI website devoted to it with hopefully Russell’s work, plus other recent work, to be added soon. See: Leicestershire.