This weekend members of  the eMonocot team will be found at the Lyme Regis Fossil festival passing on their enthusiasm about monocot plant. We will have a stand demonstrating project e-resources and also be leading two Monocot walks. The walks will  incorporate a mini bioblitz to record as many monocot plants of the area as possible. Keep an eye on the Lyme Regis Geo-Bio Blitz scratchpad to see what we find.  Lets hope for good weather.

I have just returned from Budapest and the European Orchid Congress. To see a blog and a few photos from the Congress please see the slipper orchid emonocot scratchpad at this link:

http://cypripedioideae.e-monocot.org/node/711

Ruth

Paul, Ed and Ruth returned last night from Basel where they met Lucienne de Witte and colleagues at the Swiss Orchid Foundation. To read more and see some photos, see Ruth's blog on the emonocot slipper orchid site:

http://cypripedioideae.e-monocot.org/node/710

Many Congratulations to Anna Haigh and her collaborators on the recent publication

Haigh, A. & Boyce, P. (2012). Araceae. In J.R. Timberlake & Martins, E.S. (eds.) Flora Zambesiaca Volume 12(1). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, pp. 1-54.

On the 3rd February Maria Vorontsova presented a Nature Live event at the Natural History Museum on Exploring the Grasslands of Madagascar. She talked about the species of grasses found on the island and if we should conserve these ecosystems.

Dioscoreaceae form the major part of a small but systematically and economically significant order of monocotyledons. The most diverse and important element of Dioscoreales is the yam genus, Dioscorea L., with over 600 accepted species names worldwide.

Join Paul Wilkin and Anna Trias Blasi at the Natural History Museum on the 23rd January where they will be presenting a Nature live event on snowdrops. Discover how snowdrops survive throughout the year and how scientists are keeping track of snowdrop diversity in the virtual world.

The workshop call is now closed

All submissions will be assessed and the applicants will be contacted by January 16th 2012.

We would like to thank everyone who applied for an eTaxonomy Workshop Bursary.

If you have missed the workshop deadline there are still other ways that eMonocot could assist you in your e-taxonomy work. Therefore if you are interested in the eMonocot project and wish to learn more, please contact us at enquiries@e-monocot.org

Chasing Madagascar forest grasses: collecting expedition 5 October – 8 November 2011

Maria S. Vorontsova

The 20^th World Orchid Conference is underway in Singapore this week. Lauren Gardiner (Kew) is among the delegates and will be presenting our emonocot Orchidaceae poster, highlighting the main outputs of the emonocot project for this huge family.  http://www.20woc.com.sg/site/