The Daily Telegraph Black Poplar Hunt
The article that eventually launched the national black poplar hunt appeared in the Outdoors pages of the Daily Telegraph Weekend section on August 7, 1993, under the headline 'Help save our biggest tree from the chop' -- a reference to a quote from Eric Rogers about the species being Britain's biggest native plant.
The article set out the tree's plight, and asked readers to keep an eye out for Black Poplars next time they went for a walk.
The response was extraordinary. Within days both my home and the Telegraph offices began to be bombarded with packets of leaves, twigs, photographs and map references. Over a thousand people joined in in the first few weeks; my postman got twitchy...and my very small hard-drive began struggling to keep up with an information overload.
But help was at hand. As the Telegraph continued to chart the success of the Black Poplar Hunt through my articles and the numbers of possible sightings mounted to a staggering 3,000, John White and Eric Rogers rallied round.
They - in close cooperation with Edgar Milne-Redhead -
personally vetted the thousands of samples that poured in (a deeply unpleasant task sometimes, as living tissue doesn't like being kept in a plastic bag for weeks on end)
sent their results on to the Biological Records Centre of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology where Jane Croft added them to the mounting Black Poplar database
let other scientists and academics know the strength of public sympathy for the Forgotten Tree.
Within weeks The Tree Council - which runs the national tree warden scheme - had offered its support in checking and coordinating the Hunt. With the help of a cash donation from the Telegraph, the Tree Council's Kevin Hand and Jon Stokes got together with myself, Eric Rogers and John White to publish a colour leaflet to help identify the Black Poplar.
Work on evaluating the results of the great Hunt is still continuing. But at least 300 previously unknown trees will have been added to the national database as a direct result of Telegraph readers' efforts.
Meanwhile a Black Poplar Action Group has been set up to promote a detailed action plan to save the endangered tree.