CAN you tell your bee orchid from your wood cranes-bill? How are you at spotting a rare pasqueflower or the gloriously-named melancholy thistle?

Don't worry. You don't need to be an expert to take part in what is probably the biggest - and certainly most systematic - survey of British wild flowers and plants ever.

Up to 2,000 volunteers are being asked to take part in the National Plant Monitoring Scheme survey, which botanists hope will provide the best picture yet of how our native plants are responding to disease, modern agricultural methods - and climate change.

We know that changing environmental conditions are affecting wild plants and flowers.

In recent years, for example, plants such as the bee orchid - which really does look as though a bee has settled on the flower - and the southern marsh orchid are becoming more common in Yorkshire.

Non-native species such as the Himalayan balsam and the American Skunk-cabbage (another great name) are also becoming more common here, says Harrogate-based botanist Dr Kevin Walker, the head of science at the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.

York Press:
Bee orchid. Picture: Tim Wilkins

Other species, however, are in decline in Yorkshire - mainly, Dr Walker believes, because of changes in agriculture.

They include the wood cranes-bill, the globeflower, the melancholy thistle, and the pasqueflower.

The pasqueflower is a luscious purple flower with golden stamens in the centre that was once described - by Geoffrey Grigson who wrote The Englishman's Flora - as perhaps "the most dramatically and exotically beautiful of all English plants."

Yet its numbers have declined to such an extent in Yorkshire that there is thought to be only one single plant left here, says Dr Walker. "It has always been pretty rare," he concedes.

"But it used to occur scattered all the way up through Yorkshire. Now we are down to one single plant left in northern England."

And where is it? Dr Walker isn't going to say exactly, for obvious reasons. "But it's near Ferrybridge," he says.

Botanists can see the changes taking place in the numbers and distribution of our wild plants. And they can speculate about the causes: climate change, the impact of new fertilisers and pesticides; plant diseases.

But to be able to trace the exact causes, and learn about how things such as new farming methods directly affect our native plants and flowers, they need to start doing a much more extensive, detailed, year-on-year plant survey.

That is where you come in. Under the National Plant Monitoring Scheme, up to 2,000 volunteers are being sought to carry out detailed, systematic, year-on-year surveys of small plots of land.

Botanists have identified certain types of typical British countryside - hay meadows, wet grassland, woodland, moorland - that they want to keep track of.

Within these habitats, they have randomly selected plots one kilometre square.

Each volunteer who takes part in the survey will be assigned one of these squares. They will then be asked to choose a few small patches within their square, and visit them a couple of times a year to make a record of the plants they find there.

They will be asked to do this year after year after year - and the detailed picture that is built up as a result will allow botanists to get a much greater understanding of what is happening to our wild flowers and other plants - and how this affects other wildlife such as birds and insects.

"Changes are often very slow and hard to detect but this sort of study returns to places year after year and will pick up subtle changes," says Dr Walker, who is a leading figure in the National Plant Monitoring Scheme survey.

“We have a good understanding of changes in populations of birds, butterflies and bats but never before had a scheme like this for plants.

“This will allow us to find out what is happening to our biodiversity in general. We will be able to see which species are increasing or declining due to man’s impact on the environment. It will allow us to quantify what changes are taking place and why.”

York Press:
Dr Kevin Walker, the head of science at the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland

If you fancy being a part of this massive experiment - it is an example of what is called 'citizen science', because it depends upon ordinary people - it couldn't be simpler.

There are squares scattered all around the countryside near York and across North Yorkshire - at Wheldrake Ings, up in the Yorkshire Wolds, on the Moors, in the Dales and the Vale of York - all waiting for a volunteer to take them on.

You don't need to be an expert at identifying rare plants to take part, says Hayley New of Plantlife, one of the organisations involved in organising the survey.

Volunteers will be assigned to one of three categories, depending on how much they know about plants. At the 'beginner' level, you'll only be asked to record easily identifiable and very recognisable wildflowers, such as primroses, bluebells, cowslips and the like. You'll be trained first - training events are being held all around the country - and will have illustrated guide notes to help you.

Volunteers ranked as 'intermediate' will be asked to record more species, but again you'll have training and guidance. Advanced volunteers, meanwhile, will be asked to keep a record of all the plant species in their patch.

It is the sheer number of volunteers out there taking recordings year after year that will make this such a valuable survey, says Dr Walker.

That is how 'citizen science' works. If we'd had a scheme like this in place at the time Dutch Elm Disease struck, he believes, we'd have had a much better understanding of the disease - and of the impact the loss of so many elm trees had on other wild plants and habitats.

"It is not just an amateur thing, it is proper science we are doing here," he says. "It will hopefully give us a very good understanding of what is happening to our environment." That in turn will enable us a society to set priorities for the future, and could even influence things like government policy and funding.

So you could be part of something big and important. If you love wild flowers and the Yorkshire countryside, and are looking for a good excuse to spend a couple of days a year out in the open doing your bit to understand out countryside and our wildlife, why not find out more?

* For more information on the National Plant Monitoring Scheme or to find out how to volunteer, visit www.npms.org.uk