British Plant Communities is a five-volume work, edited by John S. Rodwell and published by Cambridge University Press, which describes the plant communities which comprise the British National Vegetation Classification.
Its coverage includes all native vegetation communities and some artificial ones of Great Britain, excluding Northern Ireland. The series is a major contribution to plant conservation in Great Britain, and, as such, covers material appropriate for professionals and amateurs interested in the conservation of native plant communities. Each book begins with an introduction to the techniques used to survey the particular vegetations within its scope, discussing sampling, the type of data collected, organization of the data, and analysing the data. Each community is discussed with an overall emphasis of the ecology of the community, so that users can consider the relationships of various plant communities to each other as a function of climatic or soil conditions, for example.
The five volumes are:
- British Plant Communities Volume 1 – Woodlands and Scrub
- This volume was first published in 1991 in hardback (ISBN 0-521-23558-8) and in 1998 in paperback (ISBN 0-521-62721-4)
- British Plant Communities Volume 2 – Mires and Heaths
- This volume was first published in 1991 in hardback (ISBN 0-521-39165-2) and in 1998 in paperback (ISBN 0-521-62720-6)
- British Plant Communities Volume 3 – Grasslands and Montane Communities
- This volume was first published in 1992 in hardback (ISBN 0-521-39166-0) and in 1998 in paperback (ISBN 0-521-62719-2)
- British Plant Communities Volume 4 – Aquatic Communities, Swamps and Tall-herb Fens
- This volume was first published in 1995 in hardback (ISBN 0-521-39168-7) and in 1998 in paperback (ISBN 0-521-62718-4)
- British Plant Communities Volume 5 – Maritime Communities and Vegetation of Open Habitats
- This volume was first published in 2000 in both hardback (ISBN 0-521-39167-9) and paperback (ISBN 0-521-64476-3)