Pollen Catalogue of the British Isles

An existing digitised collection that has been migrated to the Global Pollen Project. Keith Bennett writes: The catalogue covers pollen and spores of all native pteridophytes, gymnosperms, and angiosperms of the British Isles, together with pollen of recent introductions (including crop plants) and pollen of a few types found in pre-Holocene mid- to late- Quaternary sediments. I define 'British Isles' as the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the archipelagoes of the Western Isles, Orkney, and Shetland, and all offshore islands of these, but not the Channel Islands. For work in a part of the British Isles, it may be possible to reduce this list for local use, and simplify it. For example, at the British Isles scale, we have 'Jasione montana-type' and 'Lobelia'. For work in Shetland, these could be replaced by 'Jasione montana' and Lobelia dortmanna' because the other members of these categories (Wahlenbergia hederacea and Lobelia urens) are extremely unlikely to have occurred. The full list below enables other pollen-analysts to see that these types will arise as geographical subsets of the categories with wider applicability. At the other end of the scale, many of the pollen types listed here are subsets of wider types that would be necessary where a larger flora is being considered. For example, I suggest use of 'Ilex aquifolium' in the British Isles for the category designated 'Ilex-type' by Moore et al. (1989), taking into account the morphological resemblance between pollen of Ilex spp. and North American Nemopanthus spp. If we seek truly cosmopolitan applicability of nomenclature, the result; will be a list of names that would be unnecessarily complex, and meaningless to most palynologists in most places. Nomenclature follows Stace (1991), warts and all (see Bennett et al. 1994), and Flora Europaea (Tutin et al. (1964-1980) for plants not included by Stace (1991). I use these works simply because they are the most recent floras of the region, and not because I necessarily approve (or even understand) the taxonomic principles behind some of the changes from earlier works. Notes on pre-Holocene occurrence are derived largely from Godwin (1975). All reference pollen examined by me is mounted in silicone oil, from a collection given to the Sub-department of Quaternary Research, University of Cambridge, by Prof. A.G. Smith, and all additions to the SDQR reference collection since 1979.