In article ,
Anthony E Anson writes:
| The message
| from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:
| In article ,
| Anthony E Anson wrote:
|
| Trespass is a Common Law offence, and unless you commit a crime while
| trespassing you cannot be prosecuted - this only applies to the criminal
| law - you can only be sued. Damages for common trespass, if awarded,
| generally amount to something like one penny, and the costs are usually
| borne by the litigants.
|
| That is no longer true since the infamous Criminal Justice and Public
| Order Act. A policeman can turn trespass into a crime under certain
| not-very-stringent conditions.
|
| It is still true. When you are engaged in gamekeeping on any level you
| have to know, and common trespass cannot be made into a criminal
| offence. Indeed, it is very difficult to persuade PC Dibble to look into
| anything which they consider - or hope - to be covered by Common Law.

I suggest that you buy a copy of that Act and look at it. What I
said is true.

You are confusing the fact that the police quite reasonably don't
want anything to do with such a ghastly law, especially as the
main defence is to attack the policeman for behaving unreasonably.
That is stated in the Act, incidentally!

| Under the "rave" section, a policeman can even turn insistence on your
| legal rights with no offence or even tort involved into a crime. I
| heard of one case where it was claimed that it happened, too.
|
| Hearsay evidence? And, when have you ever heard of the police
| intervening in the case of a rave? I have heard of many instances of
| them wringing their hands and pleading inability to act though.

No, an unchecked report. I heard it from someone who claimed that it
had happened to him. See above for the reason for your latter point.

| However, theft, damage, poaching etc can result in the serious
| (criminal) charge of Aggravated Trespass, which can result in heavy
| fines, imprisonment and confiscation of any tools used in its execution
| - which includes a vehicle.
|
| Not just those. Several other things, which are not themselves crimes,
| INCLUDING entering someone else's land to obstruct them from causing
| damage on your land, can leave you liable.
|
| I think you are wrting your own laws here - or painting them to suit
| your agenda.

Look, I have a copy of that Act on my bookshelves, and have read the
relevant sections. Have you?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Anthony E Anson" wrote in message
...
The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

But they don't migrate. Dig up the parent bulb and you get the bulbules
with it.

Only if you remove a large lump of topsoil, too. If you have ever
tried to get rid of bluebells, you will know how hard it is to do.

I transplanted all the bulbs from a bed last winter (Including some
bluebells) and the only ones which escaped my notice were a few
kinadoxae and some juvenile grape hyacinth. And it's not as if the soil
in my new plot is exactly friable - yet.

Ahaaaaaaaaa I will swap you montbretia for bluebells

O

"BAC" wrote in message
...

They're fruit bodies, aren't they, rather than the entire 'plant'?

Yes. But they're subterranean, so could be considered roots... Unless
perhaps not being allowed to dig up roots would allow us to hunt for corms
and tubers also?

Are truffles 'plants'?

No. But is a fungus legally different?

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

Yes. They are regarded as a separate kingdom, just like plants
and animals. Some of the things that were rolled into the 'plant'
kingdom have been separated off even more drastically, though I
forget the terms for the levels higher than kingdom.

As I recall, all multi-cellular organisms are now classified as
plants, animals, fungi or slime moulds, but with a few oddities
like the probable composite organism Euglena.

Which is in kingdom protista along with the slime molds, some seaweeds, and
pretty much all of the unicellular eucaryotes. It's a bit of a catch-all
kingdom to put all of the stuff that isn't an animal, plant or fungus (and
is, of course, eucaryotic).

"BAC" wrote in message
...

Interesting discussion between you two, but I doubt the average citizen
has
any idea what's in the WCA etc., nor has much/any fear of sanctions.
Personally, I think that education of people to appreciate why they might
be
doing harm taking plants would be a better long term bet than the creation
of yet more rules and regulations. Nick, of course, might think educating
people to take plants more appropriate - I would agree that if the plants
in
question are 'doomed' in their existing location, there is little to be
lost, and perhaps something to be gained, by relocating them to a more
secure location where they might thrive.

Education, especially getting people out to see what's growing all around
them, is never a waste (but you know my attitude on that already).

And I agree, if the site is doomed anyway it's better to let people in to
salvage what's there.

I'm afraid, though, that I've seen to many sites damaged by people wanting
plants for their gardens to believe that some kind of legislation isn't
justified; and this flawed bit of law is thus far the best we have.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

Yes. I would actually put it that I believe in educating people when
and how to take plants, and most definitely when and how not to!

For example, taking a few things like ramsons, bluebells, tipped-in
blackberries or most tree seedlings is fine, but taking even one
orchid isn't.

If I believed that those who are going to go out and collect plants already
had that knowledge, then I'd agree with you. Unfortunately, what I've seen
doesn't inspire me with that much confidence in people responsibly
collecting plants

"Kay Easton" wrote in message
...

Mycelial strands when they meet sometimes join and form fruit bodies.

I this asexual or sexual reproduction, or is the concept not relevant?
It's a long time ago that I learnt about fungi, if indeed I ever did!

In the mushrooms and their ilk (most of which are basidiomycetes) what you
have is single mating type mycelium and it'll be haploid (one set of
chromosomes), growing slowly through the substrate. If it finds another
compatible mating type then it can do the whole sexual thing, form a proper
diploid (two sets of chromosomes) mycelium, and produce fruiting bodies. So
if, for example, you took oyster mushroom spores and grew them up, you'd
have four different mating types of fluffy mycelium which when properly
crossed could grow way more rapidly and produce more oyster mushrooms, which
release more spores. So a mushroom isn't quite like a fruit (which will
normally contain seed with enough info to produce a new, adult organism) but
it's more akin to being a fruit than it is to being a whole plant or root;
it's only the part of the organism that's being used to spread genes.

That's what I thought - but it was someone else that brought truffles
into the argument!!

Sorry. That was my fault. Not that truffles are plants, but I'd hate to have
to argue with a lawyer that they're not analogous to roots (without having
to concede the point that neither are corms or tubers, which to my mind
would be silly).

"Colin Davidson" wrote in message
...

"BAC" wrote in message
...

They're fruit bodies, aren't they, rather than the entire 'plant'?

Yes. But they're subterranean, so could be considered roots... Unless
perhaps not being allowed to dig up roots would allow us to hunt for corms
and tubers also?

Are truffles 'plants'?

No. But is a fungus legally different?



The hedgehog fungus was added to Schedule 8 at the same time as the Native
Bluebell, so it seems in the eyes of the law fungi are 'plants'.

"BAC" wrote in message
...

The hedgehog fungus was added to Schedule 8 at the same time as the Native
Bluebell, so it seems in the eyes of the law fungi are 'plants'.

Indeed. Or they can at least be covered by some of the same legislation.

A shame that the hedgehog fungus and it's relatives are so scarce in the
wild. Not only would it be nice to come across them, but they make
especially good eating (I've only eaten imported specimens).

The message
from Kay Easton contains these words:

Mycelial strands when they meet sometimes join and form fruit bodies.

I this asexual or sexual reproduction, or is the concept not relevant?
It's a long time ago that I learnt about fungi, if indeed I ever did!

Well, it's a long time since I read up on it (1957?) so I shall not
stick my neck out.

--
Tony

Visit my turntable workshop http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from "BAC" contains these words:

No. But is a fungus legally different?



The hedgehog fungus was added to Schedule 8 at the same time as the Native
Bluebell, so it seems in the eyes of the law fungi are 'plants'.

In which case (assuming that it unequivocably labels it as a 'plant')
the part pertaining to the hedgehog is not enfoceable. Bloody daft too,
as I have seen clones of that covering about a quarter of an acre in
Scotland.

I bet they haven't added Amanita phalloides, verna and virosa - much rarer....

--
Tony

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The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

| I know they're not animals!

Paradoxically, you are nearly wrong :-)

DNA evidence confirms that fungi are slightly more closely related
to animals than either is to plants. The bichemists had suspected
that for decades. So you could reasonably classify them as animals,
if you move the division up a bit!

Since they have retieved viable fungal spores from what amounts to
space, which means they must to some degree be resistant to cosmic rays
and in our solar system, UV light and infra red, it has been suggested
that fungi may have originated extra-terrestrially.

I think this is fanciful though because of the immense distances
involved, and unless the universe is a lot older than scientists now
believe, any ET origin must have been within our own little solar
system. I don't dismiss the idea out of hand, however unlikely I believe
it to be though.

--
Tony
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The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

| I think you are wrting your own laws here - or painting them to suit
| your agenda.

Look, I have a copy of that Act on my bookshelves, and have read the
relevant sections. Have you?

I don't know what you believe to be the relevant section - I might well
have done, in whole or in part, either directly from the Act or as
comment in any of my commentaries and casebooks which incidentally show
just how interpretable the law is - and how one day's orthodoxy can be
overturned by precedent because one barrister takes a contrary view and
one judge (In a high enough court) is convinced.

If you look long enough you can always find something which *SEEMS* to
say what you want it to, (or don't want it to!), and if you scour
caselaw you will do the same. (See Tony Weir's excellent 'Casebook on
Tort').

Unfortunately, the law is enacted by politicians. It may be drawn up by
legally trained minds (though one often wonders) but the devil is in the
detail, and the devilish detail is often cobbled in as an Amendment and
nealy as often ends up as bad law, either because it can be used to
manipulate the intentions of Parliament, or because it is badly worded
and means everything to all men, and is thus a joy to all the legal
profession.

I wish I had more time to continue this discussion further, but I
haven't the time, most of my reference books are in store, and most
importantly, this isn't the place.

--
Tony
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The message
from "Ophelia" contains these words:

Ahaaaaaaaaa I will swap you montbretia for bluebells

Done. I can't promise they will have absolutely none of the Dago, but
I'll mark a clump which looks non-scriptlike (as opposed to nondescript)
and we'll exchange hostages in the autumn?

Whereabouts in Scotland are you? I might be visiting fiends on the Isle
of Lewis later in the year. (Or the vrey schtart of nexscht yehic!ar.)

--
Tony
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The message
from "Colin Davidson" contains these words:
"BAC" wrote in message
...

They're fruit bodies, aren't they, rather than the entire 'plant'?

Yes. But they're subterranean, so could be considered roots... Unless
perhaps not being allowed to dig up roots would allow us to hunt for corms
and tubers also?

No. Fungus has a mycelium, not a root.

Are truffles 'plants'?

No. But is a fungus legally different?

Yes, though certain mainly ignorant but influential voices are trying to
get legislation enacted that will effectively prevent anyone from
picking fungi.

--
Tony
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