What is Native?

Native plants are defined as those originating from or being indigenous to a certain place or region.  In this country, the definition is based on plants that naturally colonised the area that is now known as the British Isles after the last ice age and before they were cut off from the rest of Europe by the rising sea levels as the ice started to melt.

Following the retreating ice, the land was initially colonised by species such as juniper, silver birch and Scots pine, with the last arrivals being species that prefer warmer conditions such as beech and hornbeam.  The natural migration of trees, shrubs and other plants stopped with the formation of the English Channel, leaving the relatively few species (compared to mainland Europe) that are recognised today as the native flora of the British Isles.

It therefore follows that native plants are best adapted to the local climate of the region they naturally colonised and where they made small adaptive changes.  The same plant species found in southern and northern England will each show small differences in their phenology, such as the time of leaf-fall in trees.

Non-native species are described as ‘introduced’ or ‘alien’ species which do not originate from Britain, and have been introduced as a result of human activity.

List of British Native Trees and Shrubs

(NB: some of these species are locally or regionally native within Britain, for example Scots pine is native to Scotland only.  This list is not exhaustive and may not contain some rarer locally occurring species).

The information in this table is based on the Postcode Plants Database, compiled by the Natural History Museum.

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