Brad Scott

@trichocolea

Working with the Sloane Herbarium @qmul.bsky.social & @nhm-london.bsky.social • HPS @stsucl.bsky.social (1980s) • @routledgebooks.bsky.social (1990s) • publishing technologist • DH • bryophyte recorder, Sussex @bbsbryology.bsky.social

1767 Siguiendo3042 Seguidores255 Publicaciones

Bluesky

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y trichocolea.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Brad Scott@trichocolea· 26d

Wonderful and provocative talk by @madelinewhite.bsky.social on vernacular plant names in pre-Linnaean plant collections #ESHS-HSS

Madeline White behind a podium with a screen showing her presentation

Brad Scott@trichocolea· 27d

Excited to see @eayers0.bsky.social talking about a moss specimen (and more Entangled Organisms) from William Mitten's herbarium #ESHS-HSS

Brad Scott@trichocolea· 27d

Slightly belatedly, this was the excellent roundtable yesterday on History of Science as Agent of Change? Handling Colonial Natural History Objects #ESHS-HSS

Sam Alberti, Miranda Lowe, Alex Alberda, Sabine von Mering, Katja Kaiser and Ina Heumann sitting at a table taking questions in front of a large screen at the National Museum of Scotland

Brad Scott@trichocolea· 29d

Paul Merchant of the National Life Stories project @lifestoryrec.bsky.social talking fascinatingly about oral history in the Sources Beyond the Archive roundtable #ESHS-HSS

Paul Merchant at a podium in front of a large screen about to start his talk, with three other panellists at a table

Brad Scott@trichocolea· 29d

Nuala Caomhanach @nulybranch.bsky.social talking about women's labour in plant molecular biology #ESHS-HSS

Presentation at the history of science conference in Edinburgh

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Jul 12

I'll be surprised if I am the only person on the 12.30 from King's Cross to Edinburgh who is going to #ESHS-HSS #HistSci

The departures board at London King's Cross, showing the 12.30 train to Edinburgh

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Jun 20

Gorchakov braves the algae and crosses the Reflecting Pool at the end of Tarkovsky's Nostalghia

A man in a long coat wading through a green pool

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Jun 14

Also some moths I have never seen before: Euchoeca nebulata (Dingy Shell) among the Alders, and the incredibly camouflaged Hedya salicella (White-backed Marble), which looks just like birch bark 2/2

The moth called Dingy Shell in a plastic pot. It has pale brown wings with a scalloped pattern

The White-backed Marble moth viewed from the side

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Jun 14

A slow walk in some wet Alder woods near where I live. Care is essential, as some of the bogs are very deep and wet, with iron-rich water everywhere @ashdownforest.bsky.social 1/2

The wet woodland about a mile south of Forest Row. The orange iron-rich stream appears to be only a few feet wide but along this stretch there is impassable wet mud and Sphagnum bog alongside it. Where the sun filters through you can find various small insects among the bog plants

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Jun 9

Nice to see the latest print issue of BJHS arrive in the post. It includes my article on 'A family moss craze: learning, reading and skill development in a botanical and domestic network', and lots of other interesting work doi.org/10.1017/S000... @bshsnews.bsky.social @bbsbryology.bsky.social

The first page of the article 'A family moss craze: learning, reading and skill development in a botanical and domestic network in early nineteenth-century England and Wales'. Its abstract reads: Between 1814 and 1826 four members of the family of Jane Talbot and her cousin William Henry Fox Talbot had an active and varied interest in the study of mosses, which included the collecting, drawing and naming of specimens. This article explores the textures of their developing practice of learning natural history, and considers their activities within the framework of the circulation of knowledge, their reading and skill development, and the networks that supported them. Their social status and connections provided access to the expertise of numerous British botanists, including Lewis Weston Dillwyn, William Jackson Hooker, and James Dalton, placing the family as a locus of knowledge (re)production and transmission. This work illustrates the pedagogical practices of an elite group as they engaged with botany in a domestic setting, and makes suggestions as to their motivations and stimulations, as well as the conditions that maintained or diminished their interest. At a time when mosses were little-studied even by professed botanists, it demonstrates how a family group including many young women filled their leisure pursuits with these small plants, and reveals how an extended family with no previous expertise in formal botany could be actors in early nineteenth-century knowledge exchange.

The other contents of volume 59, issue 1 of the British Journal of the History of Science: (1) Manon C. Williams, Diagnosing the dead: post-mortem examinations and medical ship culture in the Royal Navy ; (2) Joyce Dixon, Capturing colour on HMS Beagle: Charles Darwin and Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours (1821) ; (3)
Ellen Packham, To write or not to write: the literary strategies of British civil engineers in the late eighteenth century ; (4)
John Lidwell-Durnin, Prognosis and scientific imagination in the work of Jane Webb Loudon (1800–1858); and (5) Christian Henkel, Johann Christoph Sturm’s eclectic scientific method and his indebtedness to Francis Bacon

One of the supplementary materials relating to the moss craze article. This is a network diagram of the books and people connected to muscology and natural history in the period from 1808 to 1825, as revealed in the correspondence of Henry Talbot, and highlights the members of the extended family who were involved in the study of nature

Brad Scott@trichocolea· May 25

The marvellous movement of the bright green Aspen (Populus tremula), flanked by Silver Birch (Betula pendula) in @ashdownforest.bsky.social

Brad Scott@trichocolea· May 23

Sitting quietly in some woods in @ashdownforest.bsky.social, and this longhorn beetle landed beside me

The beetle Rhagium mordax, about 2cm long, with pale brown body and two dark eye-like marks on its wing cases

The woodland habitat near where the beetle was. An inclined bank heading to a small stream, with various deciduous trees, and some Foxgloves

Brad Scott@trichocolea· May 15

A lovely place, though I haven't been there for years. This is one of my favourite photos I have ever taken. Lydford Gorge in about 1984

A black and white photo of Lydford Gorge in Devon. The leaves of the trees over hanging the ater look white, with some witeness in the water below, and everything else is black, with barely any grey tones

Brad Scott@trichocolea· May 12

Highlights of a walk @ashdownforest.bsky.social during a writing break. Slender Speedwell, the caterpillar of Common Quaker moth on birch, and the semi-parasitic Lousewort, all on a local heathy golf course

The small purple flowers of Slender Speedwell, Veronica filiformis

A green caterpillar with yellow-cream stripes and various black spots

Pink flowers of Lousewort peeping through the grass

A corner of the Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club looking north over the trees

Brad Scott@trichocolea· May 3

Monad recording in Sussex, on the edge of Ashdown Forest. Ancient woodland, heath, ghyll streams, parkland, historical settlements, and the A22 from 80 to 150m elevation provide lots of different habitats #wildflowerHour @ashdownforest.bsky.social

Two old track ways through the woods above the modern main road

A pond with grazing horses where grassland meets the woodland

A track through the woods with damp grassland and bog

The parkland meadows of a Repton-landscaped estate

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 30

Lousewort (Pedicularis sylvatica) by a small ditch on the Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club. Very easy to miss! A new monad record @sussexwildlife.bsky.social @ashdownforest.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social

A very small plant, which must have just opened. Very pink and hooded

View of the golf course where it occurs. Lots of very close-mown grass, and a few oaks and birch trees. In among this is the relic of the heath, with Heather, Bluebell, Tormentil, and Field Wood-rush.

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 27

Looking for Early-purple Orchid (Orchis mascula) at a local spot. About a dozen plants on the path, but none in the surrounding wood, where there were thousands of them a few years ago @sussexwildlife.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social

A single plant of Early-purple Orchid in dappled sunlight by the path in Forest Row in Sussex

A wood on the Wadhurst Clay with Wild Garlic, Male Fern, and masses of Bluebells, but no orchids this year

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 26

What appears to be a yellow fungus growing on Frullania dilatata in willow carr, Sussex @ilichenmoss2.bsky.social

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 26

Ranunculus auricomus (Goldilocks Buttercup) along the old canal cut at Coldwaltham in Sussex today, and Carex acuta (Slender Tufted-sedge) by the river Arun at Greatham bridge, Sussex #wildFlowerHour

Quite abundant patch of Goldilocks Buttercup by a woody track amid lots of willow

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 26

Bryophytes along the old cut of the canal near Coldwaltham in Sussex. Leucodon sciuroides, Syntrchia laevipila and Scleropodium cespitans

Willow carr along the old canal route is great habitat for epiphytic bryophytes

Scleropodium cespitans on a gravestone at Hardham churchyard

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 26

Hardham church in Sussex, with its extraordinary 12th century frescoes

Interior with lots of wall paintings in reddish hues

Various scenes in the frescoes, including St George and the dragon

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 21

in a bog on the way to Frant (i.e. in Sussex). It would have been in Waterdown Forest (in the 1793 map below), but there is no suitable habitat there any more 2/2

Late eighteenth century map of the area south of Tunbridge Wells, showing a much more extensive area of forest than is there today

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 21

In 1714 James Sherard and James Petiver went on a plant-collecting tour of Sussex and Kent. This is a specimen of Myrica gale (Bog-myrtle) collected "About Tundridge Wells", which Petiver's diary shows was gathered 16 August 1714 (OS) 1/2 @bsbibotany.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social

Specimen of Bog myrtle collected by James Petiver from a bog just north of Frant in Sussex on 16 August 1714, and now in the Natural History Museum, London, within Petiver's Hortus siccus Anglicanus, HS152, f. 258

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 20

Not so common in Sussex....

A map of the English county of Sussex showing the distribution of Mousetail (Myosurus minimus). There are only about a dozen records in the entire county since 1995

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 19

Exploring a stream in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, this afternoon. Scutellaria minor (Lesser Skullcap) in a Sphagnum flush; Cardamine flexuosa (Wavy Bitter-cress) by the stream; and Digitalis purpurea (Foxglove) emerging out of the bog #wildflowerhour

A small stream with Alder growing along it, and Birch and sallow fallen across it

A few plants of Wavy Bitter-cress with their tiny white flowers growing by the iron-rich stream

The basal leaves of Foxglove growing through some roots

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 14

The current status of bryophyte recording in Sussex. 133 000 records. Few areas are now totally unrecorded, but there is still a fair bit of work to do. The earliest records date from about 1700, but most are from the late 1980s onwards 1/2 @bbsbryology.bsky.social @sussexwildlife.bsky.social

A map of the county of Sussex in the south of England, showing the number of different species of bryophytes recorded in each tetrad (2 by 2 kilometre square). There are a few totally unrecorded on the south-western coastal areas, in parts of mid-Sussex, and in the far east of the county. Those areas are also generally under-recorded and need more work. On the coastal areas and in the low Weald, a well-recorded tetrad may have just 40 to 50 different species, but up in the high Weald, 80 or more is more normal. Some tetrads in that area (and on the north slope of the South Downs) may have 130 or more different species

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 12

A white-flowered form of Common Knapweed from "Esqr Daeths grounds" in the Hortus Siccus Anglicanus of London apothecary James Petiver (NHM HS151 f. 136). His journal shows this was gathered at Knowlton, Kent, 22 August 1714 (OS). #wildflowerhour @kentfieldclub.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social

A 310-year old dried pressed plant in a bound herbarium with the label "Jacea fl. albo | In Esqr Daeths grounds"

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Apr 2

The moss Hookeria lucens under a Birch on the edge of iron-rich bog in Ashdown Forest in Sussex today #bryology @bbsbryology.bsky.social @sussexwildlife.bsky.social

A mass of pointed, translucent leaves of the moss Hookeria lucens mixed in with a few other species, on a slightly drier shallow bank above a stream and wet flush

View of the site of the moss. It is in a shallow part of a valley surrounded by trees, mostly young birch and oak. In the foreground is a very orange boggy area, caused by the underlying iron deposits. This runs into the stream some 3 metres away. The ground rises up very slightly on the right. It is also wet there but will dry out in the summer, whereas the orange flush will not

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Mar 20

Chanced upon a little Wood Mouse on the path while having a walk today

A young Wood Mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus, on a woodland path covered in last autumn's leaves

Brad Scott@trichocolea· Mar 15

Birch consumed by Beech, Ashdown Forest, Sussex #wildflowerhour