Grassland plants 2 guide (chalk and limestone)

WildID Grassland plants 2 is an identification guide to 63 flowering plants of lowland chalk and limestone grasslands.

• Identification guide to 63 wildflowers of lowland chalk and limestone grasslands
• Also included a vegetative key, so you can identify plants even without the flowers
• Practical for use outdoors: lightweight, rucksack-sized, splash-proof

A summertime visit to chalk or limestone grassland is a fantastic botanical experience. Well known for their plant diversity – maybe 40 species in a square metre – these aromatic, flower-rich grasslands are very much worth seeing. Indeed some wild flowers don’t occur anywhere else.

But what if you find a plant that is not in flower? Based on the authors’ many years of teaching botanical students, traditional wild flower guides are not much help here. So we’ve included a vegetative key to plants of chalk and limestone grassland. This is a full identification key based on leaf characteristics. In particular, there is special guidance on identifying rosettes. A number of plants produce rosettes early in their growth cycle, and many respond to heavy grazing or trampling by adopting a rosette form.

For the British or Irish naturalist, chalk grassland is particularly special. All the chalk grassland in the world is in north-west Europe. A good proportion of this is in the south and east of England, reaching as far north as the Yorkshire Wolds. Limestone grassland is more scattered. Particularly important areas include the Cotswolds, Mendips, Peak District and the Burren in south-west Ireland. There are smaller pockets of limestone in many other counties.