The prickly poppy. The corn buttercup. The purple milk-vetch. Some names trip off the tongue, others trip it up. But not for long, if nothing is done to save these once-common British plants.
They are among 345 groups of vascular plants in the UK, an astounding 20 per cent of the total, that have been classified as endangered by the UK鈥檚 Joint Nature Conservation Committee.
The JNCC report, released on Monday, compared the 1962 Atlas of the British Flora with the 2002 New Atlas of the British & Irish Flora. The comparison allowed scientists for the first time to measure the decline in plant populations across the UK. The surprise is that many of the threatened groups are plants people consider common. 鈥淭his is a wake-up call,鈥� says Nigel Taylor, head of horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London. While blame is hard to pin down, the report fingers the usual suspects: intensive habitat use, overgrazing and the widespread use of herbicides and fertilisers.
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Even though the news is bad, Taylor is grateful that plants are finally getting some publicity. 鈥淲e鈥檙e delighted that plants are in the spotlight,鈥� he says.
