Records from the vice-county are synchronised with the BSBI Hub from where they are added to the Vascular Plant Database (VPDB) at the Biological Records Centre. Other records also end up at the BRC, so every couple of years I obtain a copy of all vascular plant records for VC104 held by the BRC. Some hours of re-formatting work later, I import these records into a separate dataset in MapMate – the software used to record and map vice-county records and synchronise them with the BSBI Hub.
I have just completed the import of the VPDB from June 2009. I would love to just combine this into my vice-county database but if I do that and then synchronise with the Hub there will be a huge amount of duplication and this will go round in circles as the years go by. With luck this will be overcome as data-handling in BSBI and BRC evolves.
There are nearly 123,000 records for VC104 in the VPDB, so spotting interesting ones is largely down to luck. However, I did find an older record for Dryopteris x complexa on Raasay and have modified my Flora accordingly. Also I notice that there are a few Raasay records from R. Mackechnie on 8 July 1959. I have a record card from Raasay dated 7-9 July 1959 with no name on it, so I think that is a mystery solved. Now all I have to do is work out what the different symbols on the card mean…….
Elsewhere, I finally got round to sending a couch grass from Muck to Mike Wilcox and he tells me that it is Elytrigia x laxa, the hybrid between E. repens (Common Couch) and E. juncea (Sand Couch). I have found this on Raasay but there is also an undated, anonymous record for the 10km square NM48 in the VPDB. NM48 is mostly Eigg but includes the bit of Muck where I found this specimen – so it may have been the same site.
Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles 
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