Grasslands

John Wright introduces the reader to the variety, distribution, history, and characteristics of British grasslands  - upland and lowland, moors and downs, boggy and  maritime, domestic and agricultural. He explores all the main kinds and includes some oddities such as the heavy-metal polluted and richly diverse grasses found near old coalmines. After introducing the reader to the history and variety of Britain's grassland, the author devotes a chapter each to ten different kinds. He begins with an account of  the typical fauna and flora before homing on the climate, geology and social history of one particular place. He then focusses yet further on the fauna and flora of one square metre of ground - one of the patches referred to in the title. He looks in detail at the species he finds and at the inter-actions and sometimes symbiotic relationships between them. Grasslands can look superficially the same but turn out to be utterly different when examined more closely. As John Wright shows again and again there is a much more to a habitat than meets the eye. This is naturalist history at its best: richly anecdotal, endlessly informative, often very funny, and illustrated in full colour with over one hundred of the author's outstanding photographs.