In the United Kingdom the statutory information may be supplied as part of the invoice or as a separate document. In the majority of cases the Supplier’s document is a separate document but a few nurseries use the invoice. When a separate document is used for plants it almost always is a multiple document with the required information for several items in the same delivery included on the one document. When plants are exported the Suppliers document may be for one item only with the information presented like an official certificate. For seeds a separate Suppliers document is almost invariably issued for each item on the invoice whether for internal use or export.
The multiple supplier’s document normally closely resembles a template suggested by the forestry authority and is shown below.
For export where an importing country prefers a supplier’s document with only one species identified, a document similar to an old Certificate of Provenance may be produced or a document with only one item is prepared using the template above.
Because of the interest in native plants and of the difficulty in understanding the new National Register of Basic Material identity, most nurseries amend the Supplier’s document template shown above to include a column where details of the provenance are given. In this the letters UK are followed by the number of the sub-region of provenance.
Any abbreviations used on any type of Supplier’s document must be fully explained on the actual document.
In the UK the Master Certificate has a unique identity number, identifying a particular collection from a single source and is always preceded by the letters UK. The numbers are issued in sequence and include the year of collection. For Material collected in Northern Ireland the numbers begin from 901 each year.
The type of basic material is abbreviated to RP (region of provenance) for seed source, ST for seed stand. OR for orchard, PF for Parents of Family, CL for clone and CM for clonal mixture.
A seed source - RP seed collected from a few Sorbus aucuparia trees in one area for use in that exact location
A seed stand -ST of Populus tremula - female trees in flower Grantown- on-Spey , Scotland
The category of reproductive material is then listed. SI = Source Identified, SE = Selected, QU = Qualified, TE= Tested and TE (prov) = provisionally approved.
Then follows the entry in the National Register by which each collection is identified. A typical entry is as follows:-
Source-identified – Acorn collection in a Source Identified stand of Quercus robur New Forest.
Selected –SE stand no. 08 of Quercus petraea in Dymock Forest Gloucestershire, England in Region 40. Note the heavy undergrowth which is a feature of British stands and makes acorn collection difficult.
Regions of Provenance and Nomenclature in the UK
With the implementation of the new Directive, a new code for identifying materia on the National register was introduced which has completely replaced the old year of collection and provenance zone system e.g. 96(10) for source identified material or 98(4001) for selected material used in the past. These old numbers may still appear until stored seed is used up.
The new National Register entry includes an abbreviation for the species in the number. The initial letter of the genus and first two letters of the specific name are used to identify each species. Thus psy is Pinus sylvestris and bpe is Betula pendula. This is followed by the above abbreviations for type of basic material and the letter N if the seed was collected from a source known by documentary or chemical evidence to be of indigenous origin – as above. Where the origin is unknown no letter is included.
Then follows the region of provenance numbers 10, 20, 30 or 40 or for native species the three figure sub-region numbers such as 102, 304 and 403 etc. These regions are based on major geoclimatic influences and take account of geological and land-form boundaries; major watersheds have been used as zone boundaries in several cases. An h is added if the source was higher than 300m above sea level. However for Pinus sylvestris where a chemical analysis has identified different origin zones the zone numbers 1 to 7 only are indicated.
These numbers are followed by a hyphen and the stand number in that particular region of provenance followed by the category of the material. Thus both the type and category of material is duplicated in the actual National Register identity. In the example given above the Fraxinus excelsior seed was collected from a selected indigenous stand number 14 in region of provenance 203 in Scotland.
For native Caledonian Pine an entry in the National Register is like the following :-
PsySTN2-26SI
This indicates that the seed was collected from a source identified Native Scots Pine seed stand number 26 in zone 2, North Central. The map of these zones is as shown. A more distinct map can be viewed by clicking on the .pdf icon.
