Wild Roses of Great Britain and Ireland

There’s a new addition to the series of BSBI Handbooks: we are delighted to
announce that Wild Roses of Great Britain and Ireland will be published this
autumn. BSBI members will be able to benefit from an exclusive introductory
offer of £16 (excl. P&P) which will save them £9 compared the RRP of £25.

LM: So, what drew you both to roses as a genus?

RM: I noticed the beauty of the shrubs when flowering and
began to want to know more about them.

GK: I would often puzzle over the identification of roses,
and being lucky to be close to good populations of the southern species Rosa
micrantha and Rosa stylosa, I learned how to separate these interesting
species. I spent a long time trying to find ‘Rosa obtusifolia’, or Rosa
tomentella as it is now known, and Downy-roses, both of which are generally
quite scarce in many parts of the south east. I only really started to find and
identify these less common species just before I met Roger (RM) in 2016, when
he was invited to record roses in the New Forest by BSBI Vice-County Recorder Martin
Rand, and Martin also invited a small number of local botanists including
myself. Following this meeting, Roger then cemented my interest in Rosa, provided
mentoring to grow my knowledge of the taxa, inviting me on further recording
trips, and introducing me to finer identification pointers and the issues of
hybrid determination.

LM: What made you decide to take the leap from liking and
recording members of this genus to taking on the mantle of being a Handbook
author? Did you put yourselves forward or were you encouraged by fellow
botanists who saw a need for this Handbook?

RM: We decided there was a need for a new handbook, as the
previous BSBI Handbook (Graham & Primavesi, 1993) was out of print, and the
taxonomy and nomenclature of roses had changed since it was first
published. 

GK: Roger approached me after a recording trip to Wiltshire
in 2019 about the potential for collaborating on a new handbook – we agreed
that there was certainly a need for one.

LM: There certainly was; this new Handbook is 285 pages
long, and covers 117 taxa, 15 of which are native, 20 are aliens and 82 are hybrids.
When did you start working on it?

RM: At the beginning of 2020.

GK: It has taken between 2020 and 2024 to get the draft
manuscript and design together, and the last year has been a series of edits
and reviews. When we first started the process there was the decision to be
made as to which software to use. We decided that Adobe Indesign would give us
the flexibility needed, but having never used this software before, there was a
fairly steep learning curve to figure out how it works and how to put the book
together.

LM: Could you give us some examples please of the species
you cover and what we can expect to find out from the new Handbook about its
identification, distribution, ecology and current conservation status?

RM: Except for conservation status, where known all the
above are covered in detail, either in the introductory chapters, or in the
species accounts.

GK: It is hoped that the details and layout of the new
handbook will aid users in finding the key features of all native species, as
well as most hybrids, and some alien species too. Rose identification requires
consideration of a suite of features, and they should all be checked for
identification purposes, especially when hybridisation is such a key aspect of
their ecology.

LM: Thank you both for providing us with sample pages
showing a selection of the species covered, they are all displayed as
illustrations on this blogpost.

You must have visited a lot of locations across Britain and
Ireland in the course of your research. Are there any that particularly stand
out in your memory?

RM: Visits to rose-rich sites in Sutherland, the Scottish
Highlands, coastal dunes in East Lothian, and wooded areas in south and west
Worcestershire with an abundance of southern specialities, and along the Welsh
borders, where the highlight was the discovery of a second British site for Rosa
villosa.

GK: As with Roger, some of my favourite locations have been
to the more remote areas of the UK; from visiting sites for the personally less
often encountered northern species, in Scotland, Wales and northern England, to
seeing the unusual population of Rosa villosa in its fairly remote setting in
Shropshire. A trip to Ireland was also very interesting and informative, and
included seeing the hybrid Rosa spinosissima × rugosa found by Paul and Ian
Green a number of years ago, and it is still persisting at its original
locality (or was in 2022).

LM: Did you get a lot of feedback from BSBI Vice-County Recorders and many of our
“ordinary members” who go out plant recording? Is there anyone in particular
whose help you would like to acknowledge?

RM: Help and support were given when visiting some
vice-counties, in particular Geoffrey Kitchener in Kent (2015), Martin Rand in
Hampshire (2016) and Ken Adams in Essex (2021), and especially the help given
by Chris Preston during the preparation of the handbook for reading the
complete manuscript, pointing out many typos etc. and for his many helpful
suggestions regarding changes and modifications to the text.

GK: In addition to RM’s reply, a trip to Ireland in 2022 was
greatly assisted by Declan Doogue, who showed me around a number of interesting
rose sites. David Morris in Oxfordshire provided an interesting day at The
Warburg BBOWT reserve, in 2023, where we recorded a good number of taxa.  Alien rose material was enhanced by
assistance from the National Trust with access to their Mottisfont Rose Garden,
and by a private rose nursery run by Joan Taylor in Hampshire.  And for myself, a number of local botanists
and friends in the Hampshire Flora Group, particularly under the leadership of
the BSBI’s Martin Rand and Tony Mundell over the years. Finally, although not
BSBI members, I should really also thank my fiancée Nicola, and step daughter
Hannah, for their patience in waiting around whilst I photographed many roses on
family outings, and spending far too much spare time on the computer over the
last few years!

LM: How about herbaria
– did you visit many herbaria to look at specimens? Are herbarium specimens
particularly useful when it comes to rose identification?

RM: Herbarium specimens are very important particularly
historical ones when assessing the accuracy of old records. Most of the
important herbaria were examined over a long period by Tony Primavesi and RM.
The collection and pressing
of specimens is covered in the introductory chapters of the handbook.

GK: The herbarium work was undertaken by RM.

LM: Now to the illustrations: they are always an important
part of any BSBI Handbook – so, what can we expect here – photographs, such as the ones which illustrate this blogpost? Are there also line drawings? Diagrams? Distribution maps?

RM: All the illustrations are photographs, there are no line
drawings. Most of the species accounts include a distribution map.

GK: Photography has been used extensively, but it has
involved a process of carefully ‘cutting out’ images of samples photographed on
pale backgrounds in Photoshop to produce a more standard looking field guide
species plate, highlighting the key features of each species. Traditional style
photos of bushes in situ have also been used for the main native species. The
majority of photographs are from either myself or Roger, but there are a small
number of additional photos used by other photographers in the book; they have
been acknowledged within, and we are grateful for the use of their material.

LM: All BSBI Handbook authors benefit from editorial support
to help them through the process towards publication. Who was your editor, was
it Liz Kungu?

RM: Yes, Liz Kungu, with help from David Pearman and Chris
Preston.

GK: We also had a chapter review from Arthur Chater, and
valuable pointers and advice on use of the software by John Norton. We are both
grateful for all the editorial support.

LM: Finally, once people have a copy of this Handbook they
will be keen to get out and use it in the field on some actual roses! Are
there any workshops in the pipeline, where botanists
can learn more before they go on (next year) to test the Handbook in the field?

RM: Scottish workshop in East Lothian in September just
completed. No further workshops planned at the moment.

GK: As mentioned by RM, we have undertaken a workshop
with around 20 of the Scottish BSBI Vice-County Recorders, organised by BSBI
Scotland Officer Matt Harding. It was a good day, at an interesting rose site
in the East Lothian sand dunes, with a lot of rose identification ground
covered.

LM: Thank you both for talking to us about the new Handbook,
the 26th in BSBI’s series of Handbooks for difficult plant groups. Wild
Roses of Great Britain and Ireland has
been a long time coming but it looks as though it will be well worth the wait –
many thanks to you and to your editors and contributors for all your hard work, and
thank you both for talking to me today.

Now, readers will want to know how to get hold of a copy of
the new BSBI Handbook.

If you are a BSBI member, there are details here
and in the Autumn issue of BSBI News telling you how you can benefit from our
exclusive offer and save £9 compared to the RRP of £25. You can order your copy
by post or else online, by clicking here to
land on the members-only area of the BSBI website: you’ll need to have your
password to hand – email us if you’ve
forgotten it – and don’t forget to include your membership number.

If you are not a BSBI member, you have two options: from 24th
November, you will be able to buy
the book from Summerfield Books and other natural history book-sellers, but why not join BSBI right now and start enjoying all the benefits of membership, including
this special offer? Take a look at our Join
Us page which lists all the benefits of BSBI membership and there’s a
secure payment option, making it very quick and easy for you to become a BSBI
member and start getting involved.