Tutor: Ros Bennett
Date: Tuesday, 20th May 2025 - Thursday, 22nd May 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £210
Location: Classroom

Using a key is not rocket science but can be fun. The important thing is to understand the terminology used and to hunt carefully for the (often exquisite) distinguishing key features. This three-day course is designed to give you confidence to identify plants using botanical keys. In doing so, it will also give you a better understanding of botanical terms and flowering plant classification.

Tutor: Beverley Glover and Paul Aston
Date: Monday, 09th June 2025
Time: 10:00 - 13:00
Cost: £40
Location: Classroom

This short course will introduce you to the fascinating world of bees and flowers, and help you develop planting schemes to attract more bees to your own garden. It will begin with a talk by the Director of the Botanic Garden, Professor Beverley Glover, on the relationship between bees and flowers; Beverley has been studying the interaction between pollinating insects and the surface structures of flowers for over a decade. This will be followed by a walk and talk amongst the plants in the Bee Borders with one of our expert horticulturists, Paul Aston, who is responsible for the design and maintenance of these beautiful beds.

Tutor: Ángela Cano and Ros Bennett
Date: Monday, 16th June 2025 - Friday, 20th June 2025
Time: 09:30 - 17:30
Cost: £460
Location: Classroom

This five-day intensive course will introduce flowering plant families to committed amateurs, undergraduates, graduates and professionals. The aim is to help you develop an understanding of the evolution and systematics of the major plant families, and the practical skills needed when approaching the identification of plant material. Teaching will be through a combination of practical sessions and lectures covering exemplars of major flowering plant families, with an emphasis on those of North Temperate regions. The course will make extensive use of plant material and the living collections across the Botanic Garden and includes a visit to the University’s Herbarium, housed in the Sainsbury Laboratory. A lunch on the final day is included in the price.

Tutor: Nathan Smith
Date: Thursday, 4th September 2025 - Friday, 5th September 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £155
Location: Classroom

Covering fungal biology and ecology, the course will also examine the wider cultural impact of fungi in art, music and religion. Participants will be taught what makes a fungus, the fundamentals of fungal identification and introduced to some of the key debates in mycology today. Nathan will also direct participants to available resources and local groups should they wish to continue their fungal adventures.

Tutor: Nathan Smith
Date: Thursday 25th September 2025 - Friday 26th September 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £80
Location: Classroom

This course will focus on the practical aspects of fungal identification—covering the basics of basidiomycetes and ascomycetes. Participants will work with seasonably available fungi to learn spore prints, basic microscopic and chemical identification, and how to collect, dry, and record fungi for scientific analysis. The fundamentals of DNA-based identification will also be covered. This course assumes a basic knowledge of fungi equivalent to the level covered in "Introduction to mycology".

Tutor: Ángela Cano
Date: Monday 17th November 2025 - Tuesday 18th November 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £155
Location: Classroom

Join our Deputy Curator, Dr Ángela Cano, on this two-day introduction to tropical botany. Travelling back in time, you will learn about the dynamic borders of the tropical region, with a focus on the fossil record. You will then study current patterns of geographic distribution of plant diversity on Earth, discovering that it is not homogeneous, but dramatically different between continents. You will fly over the tropical belt to understand which regions have the highest species richness, known as “biodiversity hotspots”, and face the strongest threats. Ángela will then discuss the main factors that threaten this biodiversity and the local and ex situ efforts that are in place to counteract their effects. The second part of the course will focus on plant systematics – understanding how plants have evolved and how taxonomists have classified them. You will focus on different tropical plant groups, starting with non-flowering plants, such as mosses, ferns and conifers and then briefly cover the most representative tropical angiosperm families.