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Plans to publish the next HNHS book Flora of Hertfordshire have received a real boost thanks to very generous donations from two HNHS members, although more funds are needed before we can go ahead.
Members of the HNHS Management Committee agreed at their meeting in February to proceed with publication of the book provided external funding can be secured to underpin the costs of production. The target is £15,000. Building on the experience of The Moths of Hertfordshire, the Committee estimate that at least £38,000 will be needed to publish and distribute the Flora. Only a proportion of these costs will be recoverable through sales of the book.
.jpg) Pasque Flower – Hertfordshire’s ‘County Flower’, will feature on the cover of the forthcoming ‘Flora’.
This photo was taken at Therfield Heath on 5 April 2009 by HNHS member Steve Chilton.
Launching the fund raising appeal, Linda Smith said: ‘Publication of the Flora will be a fantastic achievement for the Society. It will be the culmination of 25 years of careful survey work by a dedicated team of plant enthusiasts. Sylvia Kingsbury and Vernon Taylor have shown the way with their generous donations towards the funding of the Flora, We hope others will give what they can to enable the project to go ahead. For the Moths book, corporate sponsorship was important but individual donations ranging from £50 to £1000 made all the difference to the viability of the project.’
Author Trevor James has now completed the main text for the Flora and designer, Jack Fearnside, has started work on the styles for the page layouts.
The book will cover over 2000 species of vascular plants and hybrids recorded in Hertfordshire based on a countywide survey from 1987-2005 by HNHS and other volunteers. The species accounts will include distribution maps by tetrad, analysis of status, and comparison with information from The Flora of Hertfordshire by John Dony, published in 1967.
There will also be introductory sections setting the scene describing the history of botanical recording, Hertfordshire’s physical make up – geology, soils, climate and hydrology, the history of our natural landscape; Hertfordshire’s wild plant habitats, their ecology and changing flora. Appendices will cover a Hertfordshire Plant Red Data List, a selected bibliography and sources and a gazetteer of localities and sites named in the text.
Please make a donation to the Flora fund through the justgiving.com website or send your cheque, payable to ‘HNHS’, to Linda Smith, HNHS Secretary, 24 Mandeville Rise, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 7JU. Donations are eligible for GiftAid which increases the value by over 20%.
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