Swamps and tall-herb fens in the British National Vegetation Classification system

This article gives an overview of the swamp and tall-herb fen communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system.

Introduction edit

The swamp and tall-herb fen communities of the NVC were described in Volume 4 of British Plant Communities, first published in 1995, along with the aquatic communities.

In total, 28 swamp and tall-herb fen communities have been identified.

The swamp and tall-herb fen communities consist of three separate subgroups:

twenty-one swamp communities, characterised by being species-poor, each dominated by an often tall or bulky monocotyledon species, with little or nothing in the way of an understorey: S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S6, S7, S8, S9, S10, S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S18, S19, S20 and S29
two communities termed "water-margin vegetation": S22 and S23
five tall-herb fen communities, which have a more species-rich understorey than the swamps: S24, S25, S26, S27 and S28

The following is a list of the communities that make up this category: