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British Wildlife

8 issues per year 84 pages per issue Subscription only

British Wildlife is the leading natural history magazine in the UK, providing essential reading for both enthusiast and professional naturalists and wildlife conservationists. Published eight times a year, British Wildlife bridges the gap between popular writing and scientific literature through a combination of long-form articles, regular columns and reports, book reviews and letters.

Subscriptions from £33 per year

Conservation Land Management

4 issues per year 44 pages per issue Subscription only

Conservation Land Management (CLM) is a quarterly magazine that is widely regarded as essential reading for all who are involved in land management for nature conservation, across the British Isles. CLM includes long-form articles, events listings, publication reviews, new product information and updates, reports of conferences and letters.

Subscriptions from £26 per year
Academic & Professional Books  Botany  Floras & Botanical Field Guides  Botany of Europe

Rare Plants

Monograph Coming Soon
Series: British Wildlife Collection Volume: 14
By: Peter Marren(Author)
400 pages, 300 colour photos, colour & b/w illustrations, and colour distribution maps
Rare Plants
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  • Rare Plants ISBN: 9781399407328 Hardback Nov 2024 Available for pre-order
    £31.99 £40.00
    #264334
Price: £31.99
About this book Contents Customer reviews Biography Related titles
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About this book

A beautifully written and illustrated account of the threatened plant species that inhabit the British Isles.

Britain and Ireland are home to around 300 species of rare flowering plants, and many more rare ferns, mosses, liverworts and freshwater algae. These are species at the cutting edge of biodiversity: fascinating, often beautiful, and in decline. Yet as some teeter on the brink, more rare species are still being discovered.

In Rare Plants, prize-winning author Peter Marren describes the allure of Britain and Ireland's vanishing wild flora, from the simple joy of plant hunting to the wonder and (sometimes) weirdness of the plants themselves, as well as their important place in our landscape and culture. He also explores the condition of rarity in the context of our changing world and climate: why do plants become rare, what threats do they face, and what opportunities do we have to protect them before it is too late? Rare Plants concludes with an overview of different conservation techniques, using test cases such as Lady's Slipper Orchid and Starved Wood-sedge, and asks at what point careful management becomes gardening, and how far we are justified in intervening in the life of a wild species.

Illustrated with around 300 colour images by some of our best plant photographers, as well as boxed texts telling the fascinating stories of several key species, this is above all a celebration of rare plants and why they matter.

Contents

Preface

1. Modes of rarity
2. Discovery: how rare plants were found
3. The continuing story: new flowers
4. Origins: natives, archaeophytes and neophytes
5. Made in Britain: our endemic flora
6. Micro-rarities: how a few can make a lot
7. Across the divide: the world of hybrids
8. The end game: lost flowers
9. The other world: bryophytes, stoneworts, seaweeds and desmids
10. Plants and people: subjects, symbols and icons
11. The condition of rarity: problems, opportunities and imaginings
12. Lost slippers and other floral icons: challenges, champions and chickenwire
13. The conservation labyrinth: legislation, argument and action

Appendix 1. Protected plants in the United Kingdom
Appendix 2. Protected plants in Ireland

References and further reading
Illustration credits
Acknowledgements
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Peter Marren is a natural history writer and conservationist. He is a wildlife polymath whose writings extend from newspaper journalism, obituaries, book reviews and opinion pieces to humour and news summaries for the likes of Whitaker's Almanack. He was a regular contributor to British Wildlife magazine for 33 years and is the author of more than 20 books, including Bugs Britannica, Chasing the Ghost, After They're Gone, and Mushrooms – the first title in the British Wildlife Collection series.

Monograph Coming Soon
Series: British Wildlife Collection Volume: 14
By: Peter Marren(Author)
400 pages, 300 colour photos, colour & b/w illustrations, and colour distribution maps
Media reviews

"A delight. Our rare wildflowers have their supreme champion in Peter Marren, our finest natural history writer and connoisseur of the threatened and the sought-after. In this beguiling and beautifully illustrated book, which should be on the shelves of all naturalists, he explores and explains the whys and wherefores of botanical rarity in all its guises."
– Brett Westwood

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