Flora of Northern Ireland

The Flora of Northern Ireland web site provides a way of accessing plant species distribution data for Northern Ireland on a 10km x 10km grid square basis. Also included are images and descriptions of many of the c.1,100 species represented, but we are still lacking images for some species. If you have an image you would like to appear on the web site please e-mail Fiona Maitland ().

The plant distribution records are held electronically in the Vascular Plant Database for Northern Ireland (VPDNI) which forms part of the database at the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording (CEDaR), Ulster Museum.

The VPDNI is a comprehensive database of all the vascular plant records of species occurring in the wild in Northern Ireland which have been submitted to CEDaR. Most have been compiled since 1997, as part of the Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI) Atlas 2000 Project.

The BSBI Atlas 2000 Project commenced in 1995 and ran until 31 December 1999. Botanists across the United Kingdom and Ireland carried out detailed surveys of the flowering plants and ferns growing wild in every county. The results, in the form of The New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora , was published in September 2002 and is available from the Oxford University Press. This new Atlas replaces the previous BSBI Atlas of the British Flora published in 1962.

In Northern Ireland (NI) the project was based at CEDaR and financed mainly by the Environment & Heritage Service.

The Atlas 2000 Project in Northern Ireland resulted in two main products: the VPDNI; and the summary information which has been incorporated in the New Atlas maps.

If you would like access to more detailed plant distribution information for Northern Ireland, please contact the staff at CEDaR in the first instance by e-mailing:

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Species accounts can be accessed:

by the Species Search. This search facility can be used to search for a species by its latin name or common name or a combination of both.
by the Family Search. This search facility can be used to search for all species in a family by the family's latin name or common name or a combination of both.
by the Plant Groups. This list contains links to all the families in each of the six major plant groups - Clubmosses, Horsetails, Ferns, Conifers, Dicots and Monocots.
by the Full Species List.This list contains links to all the species represented on the web site in tabular form. It allows sorting alphabetically by Latin Name, Common Name and Family Name. By clicking on any of the Family Names the list can be refined to only those species in the chosen family.

The site also gives access to the species accounts through sections dedicated to Protected species in Northern Ireland and UK Priority plant species occuring in Northern Ireland. There is also a section dealing with habitats and the species typically found in each.

Protected species under current Northern Ireland legislation. From information provided in the Red Data Book.
UK Priority plant species occuring in Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland habitats. This section uses an informal approach to classifying the major plant habitats which occur in Northern Ireland

The 10km navigator can be used to determine six figure grid references for places you intend to visit or have already visited. Just click on the link and follow the instructions on the navigator page.

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