Trees and shrubs in Battersea Park

This interactive map of Battersea Park has been designed to show interesting nearby trees and shrubs to a person using a smartphone in the Park.

             Click here to view the map.

The trees and shrubs have been selected as being interesting in a particular month of the year, whether for their flowers, leaves, fruit, seeds or bark. However features shown in the photos may not be visible during the whole of a selected month.

When you first open the map it will show trees of interest during the current month. After the 21st of the current month trees for the next month will also be shown, but with a smaller yellow marker pin instead of a blue marker pin. Shrubs are marked with mauve and darker yellow pins. Tap on a marker pin to see more information about a tree or shrub in a popup box. You can close the popup box by clicking elsewhere on the map or by clicking the 'X' in the top-right corner. Your location in the Park is marked with a black marker pin.

If we tried to show every tree on the first map page, the map would become too congested. If you want to look for trees of a particular species, you can select the species in the option box lower down in the left-hand side-menu. You can also see a list of all the trees which have been included if you tap the "All trees" button in the left-hand side-menu.

Tap the ​☰ icon in the top-left corner to see the options for displaying other trees.

Some of the species identifications are tentative and are subject to confirmation. If you disagree with an identification, please use the link to the error-reporting page, or contact batterseaparktreewatchers@btinternet.com.

The aim is to show examples of species of tree or shrub rather than to try to identify every example, and for that reason usually only one example of each species is marked. The following options are available:

• trees of interest in a selected month
• common trees
• unusual trees
• trees planted in order to commemorate an event, such as the Queen's Platinum Jubilee
• trees listed in the Tree Register, including the 6 trees which the Tree Register has listed as being the tallest or widest recorded in England and the additional 15 trees listed as being the tallest or widest recorded in Greater London
• trees listed in Wandsworth Council's 2005 Tree Trail; their notes on these trees are shown in the popup windows
• trees mentioned in Tom Maxwell's tree guides, with links to the relevant text - see https://batterseapark.org/trees/; these tree guides were written for the Friends of Battersea Park Review several years ago, and some are slightly out of date.

Some labels may be difficult to read unless you zoom in. Tap the  +  and  –  icons to zoom in or out.If you tap one of the pins on the map, you will see a popup which shows the botanical and ordinary English names of the trees and links to Wikipedia and Google. The creation of the links is automated, and there may be a small number of trees for which the link does not work. Close the popup by tapping on the cross in the top-right corner or tapping elsewhere on the map.

Some tree locations may be a few metres out, as they may reflect the location from which the photo was taken. The map popups have a link to an error-reporting page.

You can update your own location on the map by Refreshing your browser page.

Some trees and shrubs, including a number of cultivated varieties, are named as "[Treename] sp." "sp." is a botanical abbreviation for "species", used where a tree or shrub cannot be precisely identified at species level. Some of the photos show seeds or fruit. The word "fruit" is a botanical expression, and does not mean that a fruit is edible. Some fruits are poisonous. For example the seeds of Laburnum and the red drupes on Yew trees are poisonous.

All the photographs were taken in Battersea Park, at the locations marked on the map. Text from the 2005 printed Battersea Park Tree Trail has been included for some of the trees, for which acknowledgement is due. The assistance of the Tree Register is acknowledged in identifying the species of a number of the trees.

The following may assist in recognising the trees and shrubs mentioned on the map:

• The Woodland Trust website and app
• The pl@ntnet website and app
• The iNaturalist website and app
• The Trees and Shrubs online website
• The Oregon State University website has a lot of pictures which assist with identification

Articles about trees in Battersea Park have been published in the Friends of Battersea Park Review. You can find copies here.

For more information on this website about trees and other species which can be seen in Battersea Park click here.

For points relating to this map, contact batterseaparktreewatchers@btinternet.com.

By all means use this email address for help in identifying any living organism in the Park.

If you have enjoyed using this map, and you are not already a member of the Friends of Battersea Park, please consider joining.

Clive Freedman, May 2023

Link to the map