London’s Plants

This book is the product of 16 years of fieldwork across an area within 20 miles of St Paul’s Cathedral, during which 1 million plant records were gathered from 30,000 different sites. London’s Plants takes a different approach from a traditional Flora, where species are typically organised in taxonomic order with notes on their habitats. Instead, this book reverses that perspective, focusing on locations first and exploring the plant communities—both man-made and semi-natural—that exist within them.

The ecological significance of a species is determined by its biomass rather than whether it is native or introduced. In Central London, it would be difficult to claim that any plant contributes more to overall ecosystem function than the non-native, predominantly planted London Plane (Platanus × hispanica). Species like this form the backbone of urban ecosystems, providing essential services that the city relies on.

The book is also intended to provide a baseline against which to judge the changes in London’s vegetation that are bound to happen over the next 100 years or so.

The introductory chapters provide details on the methodology used, and the history of London, its vegetation and people. The bulk of the book is in the form of a Gazetteer. The Gazetteer section covers all the plant communities, seminatural and man-made, to be found in the City of London, in all 32 of Greater London’s boroughs, and in 25 neighbouring districts across the Home Counties in Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey and Buckinghamshire.

This book catalogues the trees, shrubs, herbs, ferns, grasses, sedges, rushes, and water plants inhabiting London’s diverse environments. From remnants of seminatural grassland and woodland to manicured parks; from railway sidings, canals and waste ground to shopping streets in the West End; and from the varied habitats formed by residential streets from town houses, council houses, flats, terraces, semidetached, detached, mews and mansions.