Restoring the Wild, A guide to the restoration, creation and management of meadow and other wild vegetation. By Donald MacIntyre. Marlborough, The Crowood Press.  2024.  ISBN 978-0-7198-4438-6  &  9-780719-844386   272pp. £24

The author is owner of the UK’s largest producer of native seed, and this book represents the fruits of his 44+ years of sieving and refining his wildflower seeds. Don would be too modest to state that he received the Prince of Wales’s feathers for his outstanding work and advice. Travellers along motorways and dual-carriageways are often oblivious of his seed mixes that blossom through spring and summer and increase the biodiversity of verges, and the countryside in general.  Emorsgate Seeds are the go-to place for meadow mixes help to boost biodiversity.

The book has 16 chapters of which the last on Restoration Species is a little less than half the book. There are 224 angiosperms and fern species described, each nominated as either native, archaeophyte, or naturalised neophyte, and most with colourful photographs, and in some species with photographs of different stages in their growth, what they look like in cultivation, in full flower and after flowering. The diversity of geraniums and cirsiums are well explained. Who would know, unless you were a grower, that the seeds of Wood Anemone have recalcitrant seeds (intolerant of drying).

One of the unique points of this book is that many of the species are illustrated with close-ups of their seed – and their morphological structure is fascinating. There is no other go-to book for this information, or such a book about the role of wildflower species in bringing back nature. The author’s introduction is based on his botanical scientific background, and he recounts the progressive decline the flora of the British Isles, including 97% loss of species-rich meadows and calcareous grasslands to 1984, and 80% loss of lowland heath to 1980. His Emorsgate Seeds, many of which have derived from surviving ancient meadows, have ultimately helped to make a big difference, but in no way enough to redress the catastrophic anthropogenic loss that has occurred in this country.

The book has a very serious scientific look at life of wildflowers, starting with the 1,400 species, rising to ‘around 2,000 species if apomictic ‘micro-species’ of apomictic genera (Taraxacum, Hieracium, Rubus) are also included’. Whatever popular book would describe DAFOR rating (that field ecologists use daily) is for abundance, but here.

For buyers, this book walks you through the different habitats that you might wish to create, and these break down into ten categories:  Neutral Lowland Meadow and Pasture, Calcareous Meadow and Pasture, Sandy Soils, Floodplain, Upland Meadow and Pasture, Moor and Heath, Wayside and Tussock, Hedgerow and Scrub, Woodland Ground Flora and Coastal habitats. The book is not only a background on how wildflowers have been used for bringing back nature, but for practitioners on estates, groundsmen, landscape gardeners, council workers and ordinary gardeners who wish to bring some biodiversity sunshine into their gardens. It is therefore a niche book.  There are many references to further information and classic botanical texts, a Latin Index (no English one), a glossary and a comprehensive table listing all the species showing sowing rates for each habitat. A unique, classic, key work and highly recommended.