This book is a condensation of the much larger work "Comparative Plant Ecology: A functional Approach to Common British Species (Unwin Hyman, 1988)" which provides an alphabetical sequence of standardized comparative accounts of the ecology of common British vascular plants. As in "Comparative Plant Ecology", each account relies heavily upon field surveys, but also contains standardized laboratory data and a distillation of published information. Again, the material is arranged in a standard format, which now includes a drawing of the plant by Gail Furness. In selecting material for the shortened version the authors have tried to retain as much as possible of the content of the original work. Approximately one third of the quantitative, factual content of each species account has been preserved, and about two-thirds of the written notes are included. A further economy has been to dispense with all but the most important references to published sources.
As a guide to the abridgement, and a pointer to the circumstances where reference to the parent volume may be desirable, a facsimile of one of the full Autecological Accounts from "Comparative Plant Ecology" has been provided in an appendix. The summary tables of "Comparative Plant Ecology" which describes the essential ecology and biological characteristics of all the common species of the British flora have been retained in full.