A fascinating history of Britain's plant biodiversity and a unique account of how our garden landscape has been transformed over 1000 years, from 200 species of plant in the year 1000 to the astonishing variety of plants we can all see today. Thousands of plants have been introduced into Britain since 1066 by travellers, warriors, explorers and plant hunters - plants that we now take for granted such as rhododendron from the Far East, gladiolus from Africa and exotic plants like the monkey puzzle tree from Chile. Both a plant history and a useful reference book, Maggie Campbell-Culver has researched the provenance and often strange histories of many of the thousands of plants, exploring the quirky and sometimes rude nature of the plants, giving them a personality all of their own and setting them in their social context. The text is supported by beautiful contemporary paintings and modern photographs in 2 x 8 pp colour sections.

The chief aim of this book is the reconstruction of the processes and events that have determined the present flora and vegetation of the British Isles, first of all through the long ages when natural conditions prevailed and cycles of glaciations and recessions and slow geological processes were in charge, and afterwards through the nearer and much shorter span of time during which, from the Neolithic onwards, human interference has progressively and severely altered the scene. This is an exercise in biogeography that Darwin called 'that grand subject, that almost keystone to the laws of nature'. But instead of adopting Darwin's conjectural approach, based largely on circumstantial evidence, what this 1975 second edition achieves is a factual reconstruction of events by records of the actual presence of individual species or genera, in large numbers, at particular sites and specified times through the geological and historic record.

The chief aim of this book is the reconstruction of the processes and events that have determined the present flora and vegetation of the British Isles, first of all through the long ages when natural conditions prevailed and cycles of glaciations and recessions and slow geological processes were in charge, and afterwards through the nearer and much shorter span of time during which, from the Neolithic onwards, human interference has progressively and severely altered the scene. This is an exercise in biogeography that Darwin called 'that grand subject, that almost keystone to the laws of nature'. But instead of adopting Darwin's conjectural approach, based largely on circumstantial evidence, what this 1975 second edition achieves is a factual reconstruction of events by records of the actual presence of individual species or genera, in large numbers, at particular sites and specified times through the geological and historic record.

First comprehensive guide of its kind, this volume is essential for any study of freshwater algae in the British Isles.

The native British flora is today relatively ant species on the continent, such as Picea impoverished. Today the British Isles has a abies (Norway spruce), did not get into Britain flora of only about 1500 species of native in time. However, we must not over flowering plants. France and Spain, each emphasize the importance of Britain being an geographically only about twice the area, island. A comparison of floras on either side have 3-4 times as many species each. The of the English Channel shows that there are comparison is more marked when consider species present in England and not in ing the endemic species, those specialities of northern France as well as vice versa. Many each geographical region which grow of the species present in northern France but nowhere else. If only normal sexual species absent from England are weeds adapted to are considered, then there are only about 13 French agriculture. Others may be limited endemic species in the British Isles while 1000 not by the sea but by the climate. species are endemic to Spain. Nevertheless, the example of Ireland, However, the poverty of the British flora is which was isolated much earlier than the rest not a unique phenomenon. The whole of of the British Isles, does show the effect of north-western Europe, an area including isolation because it does have a much poorer northern France and much of Germany and flora and fauna.

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