National Vegetation Classifications

I bent down to take a closer look at an insignificant looking little plant in a ditch the other day and noticed that, as with many of these plants, it was more impressive up close but also that on looking it up that it had a story to tell.

Recently, in wondering what to do about an alternative to the conundrum of species poor garden lawns, I’ve been reading a lot into grassland habitats and have stumbled across an Aladdin's cave of literature on our natural and semi-natural meadows and pastures. All have National Vegetation Classifications (NVC’s) and keys to their identification. 

You’ll not be surprised to hear that it doesn’t stop there...

I understand that we can, by looking at the plants in our garden or the wider landscape, determine roughly what aspect it faces, whether it is wet or dry, or more acidic or alkaline on the pH scale. I also understand that, as mentioned in May 2022’s issue, certain plants such as wood anemone Anemone nemorosa can be indicators of, for example, ancient woodland.

On this theme I was looking up primrose Primula vulgaris as I hadn’t noticed it mentioned in the NVC grassland keys, it turns out on looking it up that the Dog’s mercury Mercurialis perennis (what a great name) that I’d bent down to inspect can be a key indicator plant of ancient woodlands, those being woodlands that have grown into a rich ecosystem and been present since at least 1600 CE, and along with this, every wild plant you can think of, each of them is an indicator of one or another ancient habitat and these become more specific as you add other plants into the mix. 

According to the NVC field guide to woodlands, dog’s mercury might well lead one to investigate the surrounding area for ash Fraxinus excelsior and field maple Acer campestre as it is the distinctive field layer species, and if this were to have primrose and ground ivy Glechoma hederacea growing within it, for example, would fall into a subcategory of the above. 

My little investigation was less of an in depth study than a curiosity, but it goes to show that the plant, the community of plants that it grows within and the region will all point towards a specific habitat. What’s more it also highlights the fragility of the landscape once conditions change due to occurrences such as a warming or cooling climate or something more direct such as an altering of the landscape mechanically or by way of additions such as fertilisers.

This one plant in a ditch next to a road on the edge of a field, may well be telling a story of once being part of the makeup of an ancient woodland and is along with many of its plant community a clue to a past landscape. But it also gives us the clue that if the land here were left to its own devices and given long enough, this is likely what it would become again.

Photo by Jack Blueberry on Unsplash