British Plant Communities is the first systematic and comprehensive account of the vegetation types of this country. It covers all natural, semi-natural and major artificial habitats in Great Britain (but not Northern Ireland), representing the fruits of fifteen years of research by leading plant ecologists. The book breaks new ground in wedding the rigorous interest in the classification of plant communities that has characterized Continental phytosociology with the deep concern traditional in Great Britain to understand how vegetation works. The published volumes have been greeted with universal acclaim, and the series has become firmly established as a framework for a wide variety of teaching, research and management activities in ecology, conservation and land-use planning.
Containing 52 community descriptions, there are also introductions to the broad vegetative types, and indices of synonyms for these communities, and the species found there.
List of figures
Preface and acknowledgements
Preamble
Part I. Aquatic Communities: Introduction to aquatic communities
Key to aquatic communities
Community descriptions
Part II. Swamps and Tall-Herb Fens: Introduction to swamps and tall-herb fens
Key to swamps and tall-herb fens
Community descriptions
Index of synonyms
Index of species
Bibliography
"This series represents an outstanding achievement of descriptive plant ecology."
- M. J. Crawley, Trends in Ecology and Evolution
"The book shall definitely be of interest to vegetation scientists, aquatic and wetland ecologists and those concerned with conservation."
- Brij Gopal, International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences
"This volume provides a useful starting point for anyone wanting to survey wetlands in the U.K. and an excellent source of information about the communitites and some of the key species. For these reasons it will remain an imporatnt reference book for anyone dealing with wetland plants not only in Great Britain, but also elsewhere in the northern hemisphere, and I hope that this and the other volumes are bought widely for libraries."
- B. A. Whitton, Hydrobiologia
"An essential tool for both professional and amateur botanists and ecologists engaged in teaching, research, fieldwork and conservation."
- Naturalist
"Like all of the preceding volumes, the very high quality of content and production is, in all respects, maintained and I, like many other plant ecologists, continue to wait with great anticipation completion of the series, which will represent an important milestone in British plant ecology."
- Brian Ferry, Annals of Botany
"[...] an excellent series of reference volumes."
- Mineral Planning