The Lost Rainforests of Britain

In the winter months I look for lichen. That habit, which I started because my binoculars are made temporarily redundant by reduced bird numbers on the uplands of the Bannau Brycheiniog during January, has developed new purpose since reading Guy Shrubsole’s magnificent ‘The Lost Rainforests of Britain’. Now I understand that the abundant varieties of these plant/fungi collaborations across the Welsh hills are not just distraction from the absence of something more exciting, but something incredible and historic in their own right – evidence of the last remaining fragments of the temperatre rainfrorests which once covered these isles.