The ‘Presidents’ Award’ is awarded annually to acknowledge a publication which makes an outstanding contribution to the understanding of the flowering plants and ferns of Britain and Ireland. The 2024 Presidents’ Award, nominated by WFS President, Sir Ghillean Prance and with the agreement of BSBI President, Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, was awarded to Paul Green, County Recorder for V.C. H12 Wexford for his Flora of County Wexford.
Paul travelled from Wexford to receive his award in person at the WFS AGM in Hunstanton on 7 September 2024. It was presented by WFS Executive Committee Chairman, Peter Llewellyn and Jo Parmenter representing the BSBI.
Paul said that he was very honoured to receive the award and commented that this was the second time he had received it, the first being in 1998, for The Atlas Flora of Somerset of which he was joint author, together with Ian Green and Geraldine Crouch. Paul is the only person to have received the award twice.
After finishing The Flora of Wexford, Paul needed another project, so he is now working on a rare plant register for Wexford. He also said that when he was first interested in botany, he was only seventeen and everyone else were old fogies but now he’s 60, the situation is reversed and he’s older than all the other people that botanise with him.
See the BSBI website for more details of the history of the award: https://bsbi.org/presidents-prize
The Flora of County Wexford, by Paul Green is the first flora for this Irish county. The flora includes 82 introductory pages, with details about recording past and present, phytogeography and habitats, places of interest and guidance notes. This is followed by the species accounts which cover all 1,700 vascular plants and stoneworts known to occur in the county. There are monad distribution maps for most species included with the descriptions.
Ebook https://bsbi.org/publications/ebooks/flora-of-county-wexford
Hardback from botanical booksellers.