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The threatened arctic-alpine plants in Scotland are described from the results of a comprehensive survey carried out between 1990 and 1996 which attempted to record all populations. The factors affecting the survival of populations of these species are indicated along with the legal measures available for their protection. I consider whether we should protect these species and whether we can. The steps needed to help ensure their survival are suggested. These could include the assessment of the local risk to populations and the implementation of remedial management to threatened populations. Scottish botanists have to decide whether they support such a change in conservation practice for plants.

Summary Existing special mechanisms for the protection of plants are very limited in their scope. The UKBAP is potentially much stronger but depends on close collaboration between the conservation agencies and voluntary groups to fill our skills gaps especially for lower plants. Currently there are provisions for the list of UKBAP priority species to develop with changing needs only in England and Wales. Appropriate monitoring should increase the effectiveness of SSSI in protecting plants but plants will not be monitored on those sites where the citation fails to mention a valid plant feature. Lower plants are particularly poorly represented on existing citations. A change in the law in England and Wales permits citations to be revised there without site renotification. We could do more to effectively protect plants by targeting threatened plant populations by making small and isolated populations a priority for remedial management; by intervening when significant populations of a wider range of species a...

Summary The distributions of Scottish rare plants are well known and we have a good understanding of the communities and habitats in which they occur. But how do we ensure that populations are maintained or enhanced? The ecological processes that determine current population size and distribution must be understood. We review the type of information from monitoring that is required to assess change in species status and to guide conservation management. Managing for habitats must be the right approach to conserving species, but we need to take careful consideration of the individual requirements of different species. Environments fluctuate at a range of spatial and temporal scales; we review the evidence that rare plant species respond to such fluctuations. We consider that there might be a danger that overprotecting some habitats, by trying to maintain constant ideal management prescriptions, might be putting some species at risk. We believe that conservation managers can resolve the apparent conflicts b...

Summary A morphologically distinct variety of Athyrium distentifolium called A. distentifolium var. flexile has been found only in Scotland. Research was undertaken for aUK Biodiversity Action Plan. To confirm that this taxon has a definitely recognisable morphology, a morphometric analysis was used on the range of characters used to define this variety. It showed that it can be clearly differentiated.

Summary Maintaining successful regeneration is clearly essential to the conservation management of threatened plants. We examine some of the considerations necessary to determine whether regeneration is successful.

Changes in the burning of heather moorland were studied in the Borders and Grampian Regions of Scotland using aerial photographs from the 1940s, 1960s and 1988. Seven out of 32 sites examined in Borders showed no evidence of heather burning. Five of these were close to conifer plantations. In Grampian only one site studied had not been burnt. Despite this difference, mean areas of heather burnt in the two regions were similar in all periods studied, with no evidence of a decline since the 1940s. Narrow (