Abstract Ecological restoration has traditionally had a bottom-up focus on plants and vegetation, but rewilding has been the opposite, and the impacts of rewilding carnivores and large herbivores on plant species and vegetation are largely unknown. The aim of this perspective, therefore, is to clarify what rewilding means for plants and vegetation, to assess progress in achieving this, to identify research needs and to make recommendations for rewilding practice. Land-use legacies and dispersal limitation are major challenges for plant rewilding, and the slowness of vegetation recovery makes success hard to evaluate on a human timescale. On the other hand, wild vegetation develops spontaneously wherever human pressures are released, regardless of the state of the site. For plant conservation, the key issue is ensuring that all plant species that can be restored are present, including rare and threatened species. Long-term species-level monitoring and, where necessary, continued intervention should be part of all projects that aim to rewild plants and vegetation.