Murder Most Florid

Review of Dr Mark Spencer’s Talk 6th Februrary 2021

The title of last Saturday’s talk Murder most Florid gave us a clue that this was not going to be the usual gardening talk.   Dr Mark Spencer’s enthusiastic and engaging manner introduced us to the world of Forensic Botany.   He explained that Botany embraces three disciplines – Fungi, Algae and Land Plants.  Land Plants are his speciality although his PhD was in the evolution of plant pathogenic fungi.

Having studied plants in our landscape for over 30years he uses this expertise to inform his approach to using plants as a means of investigating serious crime.   He explained that the Police are basically trained to deal with urban crime scenes and that they have a prescribed method of looking at and processing a crime scene and have little exposure to woodland/countryside investigation.   This can cause problems.   Mark has come to the conclusion that many people are plant blind.

Mark gave us an interesting example of trying to convince the Police that a large pile of brash could not be hiding a body as there were several Horse Chestnut saplings growing among it showing at least 2 to 3 years grow along with lichen and mosses on branches which showed no signs of disturbance for some years.   One of the pressing concerns upon discovering a body is how long has it been there.   The pattern of plant growth such as Brambles is a good gauge of time as they grow for two years and then die back.   Mark was able to say that a body had been lying there for about ten years which fitted with the Police information.

Forensic Science is perceived as being a modern science but Forensic Botany is one of the oldest and established sciences.   Just remember Plants tell stories.

It really was a fascinating and eye opening afternoon.   Thank you Mark

Fiona Pearson