Jo Parmenter
@jo-the-botanist.bsky.social
Norfolk-based #BSBI #IAmABotanist & consultant ecologist (semi-retired, in order to spend more time looking at plants). Hobbies/Interests: looking at plants. Oh, and I cook things, too (including plants).
Need help with a plant? Try #WildFlowerID
Need help with a plant? Try #WildFlowerID
Developing saltmarsh around pools at Dunwich looking stunning
November 6, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Developing saltmarsh around pools at Dunwich looking stunning
Always a bit special to see Limbarda crithmoides Golden Samphire in East Anglia - these between Dunwich and Walberswick.
November 6, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Always a bit special to see Limbarda crithmoides Golden Samphire in East Anglia - these between Dunwich and Walberswick.
Corn spurred looking pretty at Benacre
November 4, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Corn spurred looking pretty at Benacre
Not been to Covehithe for a while. Eroding cliff top has been colonised by Jersey cudweed
November 4, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Not been to Covehithe for a while. Eroding cliff top has been colonised by Jersey cudweed
1st world problem? ... when your special lime drizzle cakes for the first #BSBIbotany #NorfolkFloraGroup winter meeting of 2025-26 are sadly compromised by a slightly over-risen profile so that the drizzle topping slides off. Edges will be very tasty, at any rate....
October 31, 2025 at 6:52 PM
1st world problem? ... when your special lime drizzle cakes for the first #BSBIbotany #NorfolkFloraGroup winter meeting of 2025-26 are sadly compromised by a slightly over-risen profile so that the drizzle topping slides off. Edges will be very tasty, at any rate....
#wildflowerID help requested for mystery rosette on vaguely calcareous rewilding site west of Bircham Newton VC28 yesterday (i.e. possibly sown). My feeling is Scabiosa columbaria; other suggestions include Verbena sp. and Inula conyza (we have not arrived at a consensus!). Anyone have any thoughts?
October 26, 2025 at 10:32 AM
#wildflowerID help requested for mystery rosette on vaguely calcareous rewilding site west of Bircham Newton VC28 yesterday (i.e. possibly sown). My feeling is Scabiosa columbaria; other suggestions include Verbena sp. and Inula conyza (we have not arrived at a consensus!). Anyone have any thoughts?
Here is a screenshot instead
October 24, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Here is a screenshot instead
Our lovely #BSBI #Solanaceae Referee is away - in the meantime, anyone have any thoughts on this? Sandy arable margin, coastal SE Suffolk. From a couple of metres away I'd assumed S nitidibaccatum, but leaves well-dissected, and not at all glandular-hairy and so wondering about S sarrachoides.
October 24, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Our lovely #BSBI #Solanaceae Referee is away - in the meantime, anyone have any thoughts on this? Sandy arable margin, coastal SE Suffolk. From a couple of metres away I'd assumed S nitidibaccatum, but leaves well-dissected, and not at all glandular-hairy and so wondering about S sarrachoides.
I have been to the vegetable patch. Kitchen looks like a harvest festival has exploded in it. Tonight's menu will need to take in an eclectic mixture of Asian pear, beef tomatoes, grapes, random potatoes and things-in-the-fridge which need eating before a new life form emerges....
September 25, 2025 at 10:18 AM
I have been to the vegetable patch. Kitchen looks like a harvest festival has exploded in it. Tonight's menu will need to take in an eclectic mixture of Asian pear, beef tomatoes, grapes, random potatoes and things-in-the-fridge which need eating before a new life form emerges....
A trip to Suffolk wouldn't have been complete without calling in to see the hog's fennel Peucedanum officinale beside the footpath skirting Woodsend Marshes at Southwold
September 19, 2025 at 4:29 PM
A trip to Suffolk wouldn't have been complete without calling in to see the hog's fennel Peucedanum officinale beside the footpath skirting Woodsend Marshes at Southwold
@trisnorton.bsky.social I remembered the snail for scale this time
September 19, 2025 at 2:16 PM
@trisnorton.bsky.social I remembered the snail for scale this time
.. but then it magically appeared beside the track back to the cp
September 19, 2025 at 2:06 PM
.. but then it magically appeared beside the track back to the cp
Anyone know this one? Guessing a Teucrium.... Landguard on sunny trackside. Sandy calcareous substrate.
September 19, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Anyone know this one? Guessing a Teucrium.... Landguard on sunny trackside. Sandy calcareous substrate.
Got it! Dozens of small plants of Chenopodium vulvaria on damp sandy mud and shingle around a shallow depression at Landguard Common. Thanks to @bramblebotanist.bsky.social for directions. Now on to see the Cynosurus echinatus I last found here in 1998...
September 19, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Got it! Dozens of small plants of Chenopodium vulvaria on damp sandy mud and shingle around a shallow depression at Landguard Common. Thanks to @bramblebotanist.bsky.social for directions. Now on to see the Cynosurus echinatus I last found here in 1998...
Poa bulbosa is preparing for spring down at Landguard Common in Suffolk...
September 19, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Poa bulbosa is preparing for spring down at Landguard Common in Suffolk...
Thrilled to find a thriving colony of narrow-fruited corn-salad Valerianella dentata along a chalky field margin on the @wildkenhill.bsky.social estate near Sedgeford yesterday- only my 2nd encounter with the plant & the first time it's been recorded from this spot in over 25 years. #wildflowerhour
September 7, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Thrilled to find a thriving colony of narrow-fruited corn-salad Valerianella dentata along a chalky field margin on the @wildkenhill.bsky.social estate near Sedgeford yesterday- only my 2nd encounter with the plant & the first time it's been recorded from this spot in over 25 years. #wildflowerhour
#wildflowerhour @bramblebotanist.bsky.social was rocking new headwear at Upton Fen yesterday 😂
August 24, 2025 at 7:11 PM
#wildflowerhour @bramblebotanist.bsky.social was rocking new headwear at Upton Fen yesterday 😂
#wildflowerhour Really pleased to find about 15 plants of Baldellia ranunculoides ssp ranunculoides flowering in and around cattle-poached mud by a ditch at #NorfolkWildlifeTrust 's Hickling Reserve
August 24, 2025 at 7:08 PM
#wildflowerhour Really pleased to find about 15 plants of Baldellia ranunculoides ssp ranunculoides flowering in and around cattle-poached mud by a ditch at #NorfolkWildlifeTrust 's Hickling Reserve
#wildflowerhour a stunning stand of Orpine Hylotelephium telephium stretching along some 100m of road verge in east Norfolk yesterday
August 24, 2025 at 7:04 PM
#wildflowerhour a stunning stand of Orpine Hylotelephium telephium stretching along some 100m of road verge in east Norfolk yesterday
Not #Asteraceae but nevertheless thrilled to see hundreds of Sch8 flowering Cambridge milk-parsley Selinum carvifolium at Chippenham Fen NNR on location with #CambsFloraGroup & #NorfolkFloraGroup. A new one for me (I don't count the ones I saw a few years back at Cambs Botanic Gardens!).
August 17, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Not #Asteraceae but nevertheless thrilled to see hundreds of Sch8 flowering Cambridge milk-parsley Selinum carvifolium at Chippenham Fen NNR on location with #CambsFloraGroup & #NorfolkFloraGroup. A new one for me (I don't count the ones I saw a few years back at Cambs Botanic Gardens!).
Checked into our cottage in Glen Clova to find Veronica agrestis and Veronica peregrina (a new one for me) within minutes of arrival in the parking area! There were a handful of the V peregrina present but I have replanted and watered my specimen so that future visitors can also be charmed by it :)
August 2, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Checked into our cottage in Glen Clova to find Veronica agrestis and Veronica peregrina (a new one for me) within minutes of arrival in the parking area! There were a handful of the V peregrina present but I have replanted and watered my specimen so that future visitors can also be charmed by it :)
These plants hadn't been recorded since 2009 but happily were still present and still covering maybe 3m x 10m. I don't know much about how they spread, but in this case mice or voles would appear to be helpful....?
August 1, 2025 at 7:21 PM
These plants hadn't been recorded since 2009 but happily were still present and still covering maybe 3m x 10m. I don't know much about how they spread, but in this case mice or voles would appear to be helpful....?
Finally, after several years of hopefully visiting known sites and then finding they were closed/inaccessible etc, I found fly honeysuckle this afternoon near Coldstream on the Scottish borders. At a distance might be mistaken for snowberry, but cute rounded furry leaves and little paired berries 🥰
August 1, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Finally, after several years of hopefully visiting known sites and then finding they were closed/inaccessible etc, I found fly honeysuckle this afternoon near Coldstream on the Scottish borders. At a distance might be mistaken for snowberry, but cute rounded furry leaves and little paired berries 🥰
#wildflowerhour #hairyplants cheating (quite a lot) but couldn't resist our #NorfolkFloraGroup Tim D on marshes at Langley with a 'so-hairy-that-there-is-nothing BUT-hair-and would-make-a-great-green-toupee' horse-hair (Pithophora?) alga.
July 13, 2025 at 6:58 PM
#wildflowerhour #hairyplants cheating (quite a lot) but couldn't resist our #NorfolkFloraGroup Tim D on marshes at Langley with a 'so-hairy-that-there-is-nothing BUT-hair-and would-make-a-great-green-toupee' horse-hair (Pithophora?) alga.