Plants in Urban Landscapes (Environments)

Dear Colleagues,

Natural and planted vegetation play a very important role as source of various ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration and biodiversity. The accumulation of garbage of various kinds, in the vicinity of houses or their rubble or ruins, on the walls and roofs of old houses, on the edges of pavements sidewalks, provide a large amount of nutrients, favouring the occurrence of nitrophilous vegetation. This type of vegetation is not considered to be of conservation value, but it may have other functions that need to be discussed. In the most thermophilic places, perennial nitrophilous communities of neophytes are becoming more and more frequent, so what role do these plants play in cities? Urban kitchen gardens are becoming more and more common not only on the outskirts of urban centres, but also inside them, often reduced to spaces such as balconies and terraces. Will the food grown there be of good quality? How can terrace gardening be done? And will the so-called weeds be of any use? Gardens, including botanical gardens most of which exist in cities, contribute greatly to air quality, plant education and biodiversity conservation. It is interesting, for ex., to know what plants were or are present in the gardens and how the collections evolved, as well as which world regions were represented. These are just a few of the examples of the role of plants in urban centres, among others that should be addressed, but which must reach inhabitants and users, as well as producers and decision-makers, in a scientifically proven way, through the articles accepted for publication in this volume dedicated to plants in urban environments.

Dr. Maria Dalila Espírito-Santo
Prof. Dr. Ana Luísa Soares
Prof. Dr. Teresa Afonso do Paço
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.