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This BSBI volume on alien plants of the British Isles fills a long-standing gap. The 444 full page black and white illustrations will be indispensable to naturalists, ecologists and conservationists who need to identify alien plants.

From the introduction:

'This work makes no pretence of being perfect. It consists of a broad miscellany of line drawings of mostly unusual alien (= non-native) plants that occur in the wild in the British Isles and for which diagnostic, botanical drawings are difficult (or impossible!) to find in the literature available in a typical small botanical library. They have been drawn by a wide spectrum of artists over many (forty-three) years, and have all been donated without cost. A few were drawn by professional artists, but most were the work of very talented amateurs. The composite result is not intended to be an elegant work of art, but to form a serviceable guide to assist accurate identification of problematical plants.'

The book is designed to be used alongside Stace's 'New Flora of the British Isles' (second edition, 1997), where descriptions and other data can be found. Other volumes useful for the understanding of alien plants are Clement & Foster's 'Alien Plants of the British Isles', `Alien Grasses of the British Isles' (Ryves, Clement & Foster), 'Flora Europaea', 'Cambridge Illustrated Glossary of Botanical Terms', and 'The European Garden Flora', all of which are available from NHBS.

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