Queen's Wood is an area of ancient woodland, which has been continuously wooded since at least AD 1600. It may originate from the natural 'wildwood' which re-colonised Britain after the last ice-age i.e. primary woodland.  Certain plants have a particular affinity for ancient woodland and are more rarely encountered elsewhere. Many such indicator plants are found (or have very recently been recorded) in Queen's Wood: hornbeam, wild cherry, sessile oak, field maple, dogwood, guelder rose, midland hawthorn, wild service tree, yellow pimpernel, yellow archangel, wood anemone, goldilocks buttercup, slender st john's wort, broad-leaved helleborine, sanicle, black bryony, bluebell, common cow-wheat, pignut, early dog-violet, wood sorrel, wood meadow grass, three-veined sandwort, giant fescue, wood mellick, creeping soft grass, hairy wood-rush, great woodrush, remote sedge, wood sedge, and hard fern, based on a list of indicators published in British Wildlife, April 1999. This excludes species that are likely to have been planted. This is an astonishingly long list for woodland so close London's heart.

Queen's Wood is principally inhabited by oak and hornbeam. Such woods are largely restricted to south-east England. This gives further reason to value and conserve it.

The following birds have been spotted in the wood: crows, magpies, jays, blackbirds, greater spotted woodpeckers, green woodpeckers, blue tits, great tits, robins, sparrows, tree creepers, nuthatches, mallards, song thrushes, wood pigeons, wrens, hawfinches, cuckoos, sparrowhawks, London pigeons and goldcrests.

More information about the birds in the wood can be found in the Breeding Bird Survey and the Owl Survey completed by David Darrell-Lambert of Birdbrain.

Detailed information on the flora of Queen's Wood and other ancient woodland in Haringey is included in David Bevan's presidential address delivered at the annual general meeting of the London Natural History Society in 1992.

Extracted from the Management Plan for Queen's Wood by Dr Meg Game , May 2000