Tags
Bee Orchid, Dungeness National Nature Reserve, Seven Sisters country Park, Viper's Bugloss, Weld, Yellow Horned Poppy
Sea thrift
I’ve become a little obsessed with wildflowers. I’m not sure when it happened exactly. I’ve always enjoyed seeing flowers in the wild but in the last year or so I’ve actually started seeking them out, making special trips in the hope I’ll come across a particular plant, as yet unseen. Our recent holiday to Kent and East Sussex gave me plenty of opportunities to indulge in my new passion.
The coastline of this stretch of the country is dominated by towering chalk cliffs and shingle beaches and the soil, underlying the countryside running down to the sea, is calcareous, created many millions of years ago by shells, sponges and sediment collecting on the sea bed to form a large chalk deposit. Where the land has not been fertilised for farming the soil depth is shallow and poor in nutrients and along the shore conditions are equally tough and yet, despite this, so many plants thrive. In fact, in some places it is because of this lack of soil fertility that there are so many native plants, as the stronger grasses which proliferate elsewhere can’t survive giving other species an opportunity to grow.
The nature reserves at Rye Harbour and Dungeness are great places for a spot of wildflower hunting. Wellyman was more interested in the marsh harriers and hobbies flying overhead. As he walked along with binoculars glued to his eyes I was ambling somewhat further behind, hunched over starting intently at the ground with wildflower guide in one hand. Some of these wildflowers are tiny, blink and you’ll miss them.
At first sight the landscape looks barren with mile upon mile of shingle but Dungeness Nature Reserve is actually home to over 600 plant species which is an incredible third of all plants found in the UK.
Bittersweet
We spotted this plant poking out of the shingle and immediately recognised the distinctive flowers as being those from the nightshade family. I thought at the time it was a strange place for it to be growing though. After a little research it turns out it is actually a prostrate Bittersweet or Woody Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara var. marinum) that grows specifically on shingle beaches such as those at Dungeness. I’ve seen its hedgerow cousin growing up to several feet in amongst the hawthorn and blackthorn but here in harsher conditions it grows to no more than a foot tall, hunkering down out of the wind. I love the colour combination of its flowers but this is a plant to leave alone, like its relative the Deadly Nightshade, it is extremely toxic.
Parts of the shingle are covered in carpets of tiny white, star-like flowers that belong to the English Stonecrop. The flowers are reminiscent of alpines and the plants cling to the rocks never growing more the several centimetres tall. Low down and out of the drying winds they are able to conserve what little moisture they have.
Viper’s bugloss
There were drifts of Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) everywhere. A member of the Borage family it has lovely purple flowers with pinky-red stamens. Several days earlier I had just planted out some Echium ‘Purple Bedder’ in my own garden, so to see the native version growing en masse was a real treat. A great plant for bees and butterflies as it is packed full of nectar, it apparently self sows with abandon and is obviously thriving along this stretch of coast and is one of the few plants to reach any sort of height, reaching over 2 foot.
A damselfly on the Nottingham Catchfly
This plant really caught my eye with its dangling flowers and petals that roll inwards during the day and then roll back at dusk, when it emits a strong perfume to attract moths. I had never seen it before but with a quick check of the guide discovered it was the brilliantly named Nottingham Catchfly. Named after Nottingham Castle where it was first discovered growing in the walls it no longer survives there. Rare nationally, it is thriving at sites such as Dungeness.
The tall spires of Weld
Another plant that wouldn’t look out of place in a garden border was Weld (Reseda luteola). A plant often found growing on wasteland, it favours calcareous soils. Its tall spires are similar to Veronicastrums and the acid greenness of its flowers combined so well with the purple flowers of Viper’s bugloss that it is often found growing alongside. I won’t be surprised if this isn’t a plant we don’t see used in the show gardens at Chelsea over the next couple of years. A biennial which flowers between June and August it is also know as Dyer’s Rocket and has been used for thousands of years to produce a yellow dye. The plant is like sunflowers in the way it tracks the sun during the day, even when it’s cloudy.
Yellow Horned Poppy on the shingle beach at Cuckmere
Even in June the wind whips through this landscape. It made walking and photography difficult so its the last place you’d expect to see a poppy. Normally poppies, although adapted to poor soil conditions, are easily damaged by heavy rain and wind but the Yellow Horned Poppy (Glaucium flavum) is made of sterner stuff. For the plant to ensure seed are produced the flower needs to stay around long enough for it to be pollinated and the flowers of this particular poppy can remain on the plant for a good couple of days. They still manage to look delicate and etheral but the leaves and stems of the plant are much more robust with thicker, waxy and hairy leaves designed to minimise water loss. The striking brightness of the yellow flowers contrasts beautifully with the grey-blue crinkly leaves.
Bee Orchid
And finally, the star of the show, well for me anyway, was the completely unexpected encounter with a bee orchid. We had just completed a walk along the chalk cliffs of the Seven Sisters, returning to the visitor centre a little stiff, tired, needing the loo and desperate for a cup of tea there they were, 2 bee orchids. It was in such an incongruous place about 2 metres from the road, at the main entrance to the visitor centre, on a little bank of grass. They had a little sign next to to them but other than that I wonder how many people walk past them not realising what a little beauty is sitting there because we had that morning when we started the walk. It is from a genus of plants that mimic insects with its appearance and it can give off pheromones to attract the male of the insect species it mimics so that it is pollinated. However, the bee orchid is the only one in its genus to dispense with this and has now evolved to carry out self-pollination which may explain its ability to quickly colonise areas. I’ve wanted to see a bee orchid ever since I became aware of them and this chance meeting made my day.
Wonderful variety of wildflowers , amazing what grows so low down to escape the weather and to find a bee orchid too! Coastal paths are doing a lot to encourage the local wild flowers. Fabulous place for wild flowers is the SW wales coastal path, there we didn’t know where to walk, it was beautiful flowers everywhere, have you ever been there, if not, I can recommend it.
Nothing so exciting as seeing wild orchids! That is how I feel when we see wild Disas. Viper’s Bugloss is a seek and destroy in my garden. Left to itself it does take over a whole fallow field, a shoulder high drift of those, yes beautifully coloured, flowers!
That’s a great post! Chalk landscape is just so alien to me, and it’s wonderful to see what can grow in it.
Beautiful wild flowers! I think all the wet weather has been good for them – at least in my garden. 🙂 they inspired my post today too..
I love wild flowers too, and it is great to see thecousins of garden flowers in their natural forms often actually more beautiful than the ‘improved’ version. Christina
Wild flowers and plants are just so beautiful. Love that Viper’s Bugloss. My sister-in-law just sent me a packet of seeds for same which she bought when she visited Dungeness.
The bee orchids are so pretty. I don’t really know much about wild flowers so I enjoyed reading your post.
What a lovely post – took me back to a part of the coast I often used to visit, and also took my mind off slugs…
I also had an encounter with a bee orchid this year – my second ever – and it now has a friend, which is wonderful. Ours aren’t signposted though; in fact rather the opposite. They’re incredible things, aren’t they?
What a lovely sight to see at the end of your walk. Beautiful.
what a damsel! Seeing solanum in the shingle was the most amazing although the bee orchid is one from the I-spy book yet to tick. Keep up the obsession
I absolutely adore wildflowers and learning about them in other parts of the globe. These are so lovely and I have sea thrift in my garden…
Hi Donna, Thank you. I find wildflowers so fascinating, like you hadn’t guessed. How lovely to have sea thrift in your garden. It always reminds me of holidays by the sea.
Excellent – I’ve only ever seen bee orchids once, in a nature reserve not so very far from Cuckmere/Seven Sisters. (I live about two or three miles from Cuckmere Haven – you should’ve popped in for your tea)! My interest in wild flowers really took off when I moved very close to open downland. The sheep-cropped turf is just full of little treasure – and my little id book was invaluable. Did you not see sea-kale on your trip? It is plentiful on the beach at Newhaven and rather beautiful, in an odd sort of way. D
Hi David, What a shame, meeting for a cup of tea would have been lovely. We hadn’t really planned on visiting that area to be honest but we found ourselves driving back from Alfriston along the coast and drove through Cuckmere and it looked so lovely that we thought we’d give it a try. The South Downs are beautiful and I’d love to spend so more time in that area walking and looking at wildflowers. Saw lots of sea kale but the flowers had started to go over and the plants were looking a little scratty so none of my photos show the plant in its best light shall we say. WW
I have always liked wild flowers, and I have a couple of well thumbed books about them. I grow some on the plot such as lesser knapweed and poppies.
Thanks for an interesting and informative post. xx
Hi Flighty, Thank you, I bought a few excellent wild flower books on holiday. They’re fascinating to read, all the different names and the plants that need such specific habitats.
The South Downs are a treasure trove for wild plants. I always look out for plants in the shingle when I go to the Solent beach near my parents’ home, I find them very beautiful. Viper’s bugloss is a favourite but, as you know, very tall. Echium is the low-growing garden alternative and equally attractive to bees. Lovely post, lovely pics – and sounds like you thoroughly enjoyed the downs. I’d like to visit more often but London traffic is such a bore.
It was a beautiful part of the country. Somewhere I’d like to revisit. We used to live near London and still visit occasionally so I sympathise about the traffic. I get pretty impatient in traffic, we’re lucky here in the sticks traffic jams are few and far between and tend to involve tractors!