Plantae

Plants form the structural skeleton of every landscape I walk through. Without them there is no canopy, no leaf litter, no root system for fungi to colonise, no habitat for anything else. I notice them more slowly than fungi, they do not appear overnight, but that consistency is part of what makes them worth tracking across seasons.

This section covers species I have identified and noted in parks, forests, dunes, and roadsides, primarily in the Netherlands and northwest Europe. The focus is on trees and shrubs I can reliably encounter, with cultivated park specimens included where they deepen my understanding of a genus.

A collection of plant observations organized by taxonomy.

Plant-Specific Tags

Foliage Type Tags

• evergreen - Plants that retain foliage year-round
• deciduous - Plants that shed foliage seasonally

Growth Form Tags

• tree - Woody plants with a single main trunk
• shrub - Woody plants with multiple stems from the base
• dwarf - Compact or slow-growing forms
• prostrate - Low-growing, ground-hugging forms

Cultivar Characteristic Tags

Common cultivar descriptors:

• glauca - Blue-gray or silvery foliage (from Latin “glaucus”)
• aurea - Golden or yellow foliage
• argentea - Silvery foliage
• viridis - Green foliage (often bright or vibrant green)
• fastigiata - Columnar or narrowly upright growth habit
• pendula - Weeping or drooping branches
• pyramidalis - Pyramidal or conical shape
• compacta - Dense, compact growth
• nana - Dwarf form
• globosa - Globe-shaped or rounded form
• variegata - Variegated foliage (mixed colors)
• prostrata - Prostrate or creeping growth habit

Plantae
│
├── Bryophytes (non-vascular plants)
│   ├── Mosses
│   ├── Liverworts
│   └── Hornworts
│
└── Tracheophytes (vascular plants)
    │
    ├── Lycophytes (clubmosses & spikemosses)    ← free-sporing; few NL species
    │   └── Lycopodiaceae (Lycopodium, Huperzia)
    │
    └── Euphyllophytes
        │
        ├── Monilophytes (ferns & horsetails)    ← free-sporing
        │
        └── Spermatophytes (seed plants)
            │
            ├── Gymnosperms (naked seed plants)
            │   ├── Ginkgo
            │   └── Conifers (cone-bearing)
            │
            └── Angiosperms (flowering seed plants)
                ├── Magnoliids (magnolia relatives)
                ├── Monocots (grasses, lilies, palms)
                └── Eudicots (true dicots)