Wildlife UK Forum - Discuss the UK countryside and wildlife

I'm new here in the U.K and I would like to know which flowers are protected so that I don't go out some day and pick a bouquet by misstake. I think it is important to preserve a nice flora. Thanks

The simplest thing is to consider ALL wild flowers as protected.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981, states:

"It is also an offence under Section 13(1)(b) for "any unauthorised person to intentionally uproot any wild plant" - protected or otherwise"

Have a look here: http://www.englishplants.co.uk/protection.html

I think Orchids are protected but I'm not sure.

Yogi.

P.S. Welcome to the UK and the site. Good to have you with us.

ok thanks, so orchids or all flowers , I will just have to pick the flowers for my husband from our garden instead. It is true that it doesn't feel right to pick any wild flowers, perhaps I could pick one wild rose if there are 100 roses somewhere or that would be wrong to?


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All wild flowers are there for everyones benefit to look at and photograph. However, I can't see a problem in picking one out of a hundred. Others will probably say different. But if a hundred people say the same, we've no flowers.

Yogi.

This is the problem, isn't it. If everyone picked wild flowers, then there will be none left to enjoy. My simple rule is: look but don't touch!

And just to put the nail in the coffin so to speak, taking wildflowers (or anything else for that matter) from private land is of course theft!

If one person take a flower then we have a one flower less. And if we have hundred of this persons we'll have 100 flowers less. And you should think - what will we do if thousand of people will theft flowers and they will do it twice a year? We'll lose 2000 flowers and the most of people do it twice a week, not twice a year...We should think about it before we do something. Unless the most of people don't want think about it...

It's best to consider all British Wildflowers as protected.
The Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981 is the thing to study, but it gets complicated. It appears to protect everything, then branches out into exceptions!
With plants, there are exceptions for the likes of Ragwort and Himalayan Balsam and many more.
With birds, most are protected, but the terms of a General Licence allow exceptions, for (say) Gamekeepers and Conservationists.
The knack is, knowing the exceptions! For instance don't even think about collecting Bluebells, Orchids or Snowdrops. But feel free to collect or destroy every Ragwort you can find !

Here's a couple of links I'm getting to grips with at the moment, which may be of help.

http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/...6-3859.pdf

http://www.jncc.gov.uk/page-4341

Keith.

'If one person picks a flower...'
This is the glib answer to this kind of problem. There are far too many 'ifs'. If one person picks a flower it simply does not follow that everyone else will do, or even want to do, the same. Just use some common sense. The flower-picking that really does annoy me is when the picker changes their mind and throws them aside. It also certainly annoyed me when someone brought a bee orchid to me and said "Look, I think this is an orchid. Am I right". I answered "You are wrong. It was an orchid".

Sadly, the opposite has been true in the past. Several of our wild flowers have become dangerously low in numbers due to them being picked. There is only one certainty - that you cannot rely on common sense!

... whatever the situation.

Unfortunately I must agree. I don't want to agree, but it is an observable sad fact that common sense, along with self control and consideration for other people are lacking in a large portion of our population.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment...965606.ece

Britain's rarest flower given round-the-clock police protection

When I was quite a small child my Godmother used to take me on nature rambles and she always used to say "Leave nothing but footprints - take nothing but photographs."

That was sound advice from your Godmother Cat!


Joey