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| The abstract art of the Soilscapes map. A bit like a less colourful Patrick Heron perhaps. |
This morning a student and I were poring over her fern collection, and grappling with the keys. She'd collected some from Lancashire... in fact, we thought one of the species could be the northern buckler fern, Dryopteris expansa. Hopefully she'll find examples of the more common broad buckler fern Dryopteris dilatata and be able to compare them.
Sometimes different (though similar looking) species can be distinguished partly because they grow in different parts of the country - in different habitats. Some prefer moorland, some like limestone, for example. But how (she asked) would she know what the soil was like where she found the specimens?
You can try using the Soilscapes map from Cranfield University. It's quite detailed and will tell you whether your local soil is acidic or alkaline. It could be really useful for some additional information for your notebook / labelling.
You may also like the Geology of Britain Viewer from the British Geological Survey, which will tell you which bedrocks underlie the soil. It even tells you the geological history of the different types. It's possibly less useful unless you're looking at plants / lichens growing directly on the rock. But it's certainly very interesting.
