Checklist of the Urban Flora of Scotland

Compiled from information largely gathered during the Botanical Society of Scotland’s Urban Flora of Scotland Project, which began in 2015 and is ongoing. This is a current list of vascular plants recorded in Scotland’s towns and cities with populations of more than 1000, and will be updated at intervals as necessary. This latest version has some changes and additions since the first preliminary list was published.

The area surveyed was within the 30 mph limit and included both the built-up area and wild areas within the location. The publication also includes other records from diverse sources from 2000-2019. Planted species as well most microspecies and some hybrids have been excluded.

Nomenclature has been checked against Stace’s New Flora of the British Isles 4th ed. Older synonyms are given in brackets in some cases. Locations given are only examples and there are often many more.

Urban flora is regarded as being important in conservation terms, particularly as much of the countryside has been given over to large-scale agriculture and forestry. Some surveys have suggested that the urban flora is also more diverse than the rural flora.  Preliminary analysis shows that urban flora has a higher proportion of neophytes than rural locations.