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Grassland
Flower-rich grasslands, once a part of every farm, are part of our culture. Most have developed alongside humans because of livestock grazing and cutting for hay. Many have archaeological and…
Rocky habitat
Rocky habitats are some of the most natural and untouched places in the UK. Often high up in the hills and hard to reach, they are havens for some of our rarest wildlife.
Calaminarian grassland
This is a strange, sparse habitat of grassland growing on old mining tracks and slag heaps, on river gravels and naturally exposed metal-rich soils in the mountains. Only the toughest metal-loving…
Marsh fritillary
This beautiful butterfly is one of our rarest, now mostly restricted to the western parts of the UK.
Land Management
Upland calcareous grassland
Limited in distribution, this sweetly-scented, short-cropped, springy grassland is famed for its abundance of rare and scarce species.
Marsh helleborine
The Marsh helleborine is a beautiful orchid of fens, wet grassland and dune slacks. Growing in profusion in places, look for reddish stems and white-and-pink flowers.
Lowland calcareous grassland
Typical of softly rolling pastoral landscapes, the short, aromatic turf of lowland calcareous grassland is flower-rich and humming with insects in the summer. Its long use by humans lends it an…
Lowland dry acid grassland
Sprinkled with diminutive, short-living flowers in spring and parched dry by July, this is a habitat of heathlands, coastal grasslands and ancient parkland.
Marsh cinquefoil
Look for the deep magenta, star-shaped flowers of Marsh cinquefoil in marshes, bogs, fens and wetlands in the north, west and east of the UK.
Marsh violet
As its name suggests, the Marsh violet likes damp spots, such as marshes, bogs and wet woods. It is a low-growing plant with kidney-shaped leaves and pale lilac flowers.