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…

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…

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…

Sprinkled with diminutive, short-living flowers in spring and parched dry by July, this is a habitat of heathlands, coastal grasslands and ancient parkland.

These wild, open landscapes stretch over large areas and are most often found in uplands. Although slow to awaken in spring, by late summer heathland can be an eye-catching purple haze of heather…

Limited in distribution, this sweetly-scented, short-cropped, springy grassland is famed for its abundance of rare and scarce species.

These grasslands, occupying much of the UK's heavily-grazed upland landscape, are of greater cultural than wildlife interest, but remain a habitat to some scarce and declining species.