Mountain flowers

Britain's mountains and exposed sub-arctic regions of the far north are home to a remarkable range of specialist flowers, shrubs and ferns.

These plants are able to thrive on our islands thanks to a combination of conditions seldom found in mainland Europe.

The peculiarities of their occurrence here, at unusually low altitudes for typically alpine species and uncommonly far south for typically arctic species, make their ecology especially intriguing.

In a journey that ranges from The Lizard of Cornwall to Unst in Shetland, this book looks at the British sites that support the richest mountain flora, and discusses the ecology and distribution of the key montane and submontane plants, with a particular focus on the conservation of the rarest species.