I have in interest in nature and I wanted to know the names of wild flowers growing in the North West of Ireland. I began the online Certificate in Irish Wild Flower Identification course in March 2023 run by Sligo Institute of Technology (now the Atlantic Technological University [ATU]).
The mandatory aspects of the course involved preparing a herbarium with 100 flowering plants and attendance at an examination in early September to test my knowledge of the collected plants in my herbarium to obtain the certificate.
Attendance at workshops in different habitats (urban, woodland, beach, farm) was optional, but they were a good way to meet the lecturer and other students.
Between March 2023 and August 2023 I went around my local area in Counties Donegal, Sligo and Fermanagh to photograph and collect wild flowers.
Once back home, I identified the flowers using wild flower identification books and pressed the flowers. I used the following book to identify the flowers:
The Wildflowers of Ireland. A field guide. Zoe Devlin. 2nd Edition.
The herbarium contained photographs of the flowers in their natural habitats along with a short description of the flowers under the headings:
Common name
Scientific name
Family name
Date collected
Habitat
Location
Flower colour
Plant feature
Book used for identification.
I placed a numbered list of the flowers collected at the beginning of the herbarium. I arranged the flowers in alphabetical order within their families.
I liked getting out of the office, into nature and looking for flowers/weeds. I liked meeting the lecturer and other students who came from all over Ireland and from various backgrounds. I began to notice wild flowers growing in all kinds of unexpected places and I appreciated nature all the more.
Some flowers were very similar and hard to identify, for example the ‘tall dandelions’. A couple of flowers were a bit fragile for pressing and occasionally the flowers got mouldy. Collecting the flowers depended on the weather being dry which can be difficult in Donegal.
I didn’t think it would be possible to collect 100 wild flowers. Luckily I was wrong and I collected over 100 wild flowers. I picked the best-preserved ones for the herbarium.
I also found it challenging to learn both the common and Latin names. Some flowers looked similar and some names were fairly obscure and hard to remember.
I found the wild flowers in waste ground, hedges, lawns, coast/beaches, bogs, mountains, road sides, and on driveways.
This blog has nothing to do with indexing or proofreading. However, I made two indexes of the wild flowers I collected – one to the common names and another to the Latin names.
I am working on a portfolio to record the diversity of flowers I found growing in the North West of Ireland in 2023.
I will leave you with a few photographs of the flowers I found:
For anyone writing a book which needs a proofread or an index, hire a professional from AFEPI (Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders & Indexers of Ireland) , the Society of Indexers, or CIEP (Charter Institute of Editing and Proofreading) to lighten your load!