Are these plants native to Britain?

Posts

• raisingirl Posts: 7,093

  May 2019

  'native' can be hard to pin down. Assuming very common and of unknown introduction:
  
  knapweed - probably. Both 'greater' and 'common' knapweed are widespread. There is a 'brown' one that is only found if 'introduced'
  ox-eye daisy - yes
  dead nettle - the short red flowered one, yes. Taller ones with variegated or blotched leaves, garden plants escaped. There is a taller, plain leaved, white flowered one which would probably be considered native but may not be truly so.
  nigella - no. Southern European introduction
  phacelia - no. I think it's American

  Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
  
  “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 

  0
• Obelixx Posts: 30,090

  May 2019 edited May 2019

  During the Ice Age most of what i snow Britain was covered in Ice and the rest was too very cold to grow very much.  That was just 17000 years ago, a blink in evolutionary time.  That makes for a teeny pool of truly native plants.   
  
  Since then, plants have come in as people migrated and brought or unwittingly carried plants with them on their feet, clothes, animals plus what came by wind or birds.   Where do you want to draw the native line?    Clearly anything from the Americas or Australasia can be excluded but now we know how much prehistoric man moved about and crossed the Alps to get to Stonehenge and traded with the Phoenicians and further afield I reckon anything of Eurasian origins could be classed as native unless we know of it being introduced in recent centuries by plant hunters and traders from say Tradescant onwards.

  Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
  

  "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."

  Plato
  

  0
• B3 Posts: 27,505

  May 2019

  GD arent you nearer to France?😉  

  In London. Keen but lazy.

  0
• Guernsey Donkey2 Posts: 6,713

  May 2019

  I have tried to keep the meadow to just English native plants, but have sneaked in some Nigella Knapweed and the Phacelia just re-seeded from a past mixed seed sowing.  The Dead Nettle seemed to arrive by accident - just the one flower so far. Thanks.
  

  0