Urban myths exploded: results of a bryological survey of King’s Lynn (Norfolk, UK)

Generalizations about urban bryophytes in European cities have received little attention in Britain. Here they are treated as hypotheses, to be tested against the results of a detailed survey of King’s Lynn, a town of about 41 000 people in eastern England. During 1999–2004 the flora was enumerated in twenty-five 1-km squares, arranged in a square of side 5 km. The species total for King’s Lynn was 151, with an average of 42 species per 1-km square. We compared the flora of the town with that of the East Anglian region, from which 345 species have been recorded. Frequency of species in 1-km squares of King’s Lynn was strongly related to frequency in 5-km squares in East Anglia. The King’s Lynn flora was, for the region, exceptionally species-rich, with more calcifuges and fewer epiphytes than would be expected from the regional average. In the 1-km square containing the town centre, 28 species were recorded, of which Bryum caespiticium, Ceratodon purpureus, Funaria hygrometrica and Marchantia polymorpha were more frequent in the town than in the wider countryside.