Many plants are now more abundant in the urban
environment than in the countryside. This change is mostly due to
suburbanisation and the attention paid to air, space en green by urban
designers from the 1900 onwards. A lot of these plants commonly seen growing in
the urban environment are amongst the most common native plants. These plants
are often able to make use of changes human activity has made to the growing
conditions or the amount of nutrients available.
The winding stems of Bindweed (Calystegia sepium) will
clamber up any vertical support no matter if it is another plant or a manmade
structure like a fence or a hedge. The showy white flowers appear only before
noon. Another plant known as a weed is the Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica).
This plant with underground shoots is a valued food plant for many butterflies.
It can quickly take over a nitrogen-rich site creating an almost impenetrable
mass of stinging leaves. Many lovers of crisp lawns regard the Daisy (Bellis
perennis) as an awful weed as this plant can survive a regular mowing. I
personally quite like a lawn speckled with these white flowers, especially in
parks...
Greater celandine (Chelidonium majus) is a perennial
plant in the poppy family (shown left). It naturally grew on the forest edge,
but has successfully conquered gardens, where it likes to grew underneath
hedges and in shady corners where leaf litter has accumulated. On moist soil or
clay the Creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens) is one of the most common
pants. It's not eaten by cattle. It can colour the banks of waterways yellow
and in gardens and parks it can take over given the right conditions. Each node
on stems touching moist ground will grow roots. On dryer sandier soils another
yellow flower can become truly ubiquitous: the Dandelion. These tough plants
grow naturally on poor soils in grassland. In the city they prefer roadside
verges (shown right).
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