100 Species Challenge

I have decided to join Melissa Wiley at Here in the Bonny Glen in the 100 Species Challenge begun by scsours. The aim is to identify one hundred plant species growing in your local neighbourhood. These are the rules:

1. Participants should include a copy of these rules and a link to this entry in their initial blog post about the challenge.

2. Participants should keep a list of all plant species they can name, either by common or scientific name, that are living within walking distance of the participant's home. The list should be numbered, and should appear in every blog entry about the challenge, or in a sidebar.

3. Participants are encouraged to give detailed information about the plants they can name in the first post in which that plant appears.

4. Participants are encouraged to make it possible for visitors to their blog to find easily all 100-Species-Challenge blog posts.

5. Participants may post pictures of plants they are unable to identify, or are unable to identify with precision. They should not include these plants in the numbered list until they are able to identify it with relative precision. Each participant shall determine the level of precision that is acceptable to her; however, being able to distinguish between plants that have different common names should be a bare minimum.

6. Different varieties of the same species shall not count as different entries (e.g., Celebrity Tomato and Roma Tomato should not be separate entries); however, different species which share a common name be separate if the participant is able to distinguish between them (e.g., camillia japonica and camillia sassanqua if the participant can distinguish the two--"camillia" if not).

7. Participants may take as long as they like to complete the challenge.

I am pretty much going to copy the author's format, posting pictures (taken by myself if possible) and information about each plant. I am not even going to try to commit to posting regularly. I shall just add random sections at random intervals. As an extra rule for myself, I am going to stick to wild flowers and avoid cultivated garden flowers.

I have always lived in this area and I enjoy plant spotting, so I should already be able to identify a fair number. I'm not sure I could reach one hundred yet, though. I'm hoping to use the challenge to learn a few new plants, and to increase my knowledge about the ones I already recognise.