Origin of Plants: The Story of how Plants Came to Britain since the Year 1000

A thousand years ago, there were only a few hundred plants indigenous to the British Isles. Over the past millennium, however, countless seeds, bulbs, and cuttings have been brought into Britain—deliberately or unwittingly—by travelers, warriors, explorers, and plant hunters who introduced what are now considered common plants—rhododendrons from the Far East, gladioli from Africa, exotics like the monkey puzzle tree from Chile. Europe and the Near East, Russia and North America, South America an…