Discovering our wonderful wildflowers

Zoe Devlin explains where you can find our vast array of wildflowers and how you can recognise them

Thrift

As spring begins to make its gentle transformation into summer, June is the very best time to look out for some of those treasures of the hedgerows and roadsides – the wildflowers. Once you get into the habit of looking out for these gems, there can be an enormous amount of pleasure to be gained by observing and identifying them. No fancy equipment is needed other than a good pair of walking shoes and, if you find yourself being drawn in to this absorbing hobby, a small hand lens is a most useful tool for examining the delicate features of the flowers and leaves; and of course, a little field guide to Irish wildflowers might come in handy too.

Ireland is a nature-lover’s paradise with many different habitats from woodland to coastal, bogland to meadows, limestone and heath, each with its own particular assortment of plant species.

In early summer, a walk in a deciduous woodland can be most rewarding, the fresh, newly-emerged leaves creating a bright green canopy, high above the forest floor. At the woodland margins, curving, thorny branches of the native Dog-rose bear pink and white blossoms in small groups, the five petals of each flower surrounding a cluster of yellow stamens and a conical tuft of stigmas that, later on in the autumn will lead to the production of bright scarlet ‘hips’. Honeysuckle (AKA Woodbine) begins to twine itself over other vegetation, helping diverse parts of nature as it grows. Its flowers help to feed the bees with sweet, sugary nectar and when they have finished blooming the plants will produce red berries that are devoured by visiting robins, song thrushes, blackbirds and bullfinches. The flowers also have a pleasant aroma that attracts night-flying moths in search of nectar. of pinky-purple bell-shaped flowers in both deciduous and coniferous woodland; this species is also known, in some parts, as Fairy Thimbles. Also on the borders of the woodland, a little beauty with small, deep-blue flowers demands to be examined more closely. This is Germander Speedwell, just one of a number of speedwells that are native to Ireland. Each flower in the speedwell family has four petals – a matching pair on either side and a large upper petal with a smaller one below. Dark blue lines run into the centre of each flower, helping to guide tiny insects towards the nectar. Wandering through some of our old woodlands, it is quite common to come across the remains of old walls and abandoned dwellings with ferns and mosses growing over them in profusion. These relics of the past also offer tiny footholds for another native – Navelwort (AKA Pennywort). It has erect spikes of greenish-white tubular flowers but it is the leaves that help to identify the plant. Each has a small dimple at the centre – a little like a tummy-button, hence its

Honeysuckle

Dog Rose

Navel Wort Sea Bindweed

common name. Perhaps the best known and best loved woodland species is the native Bluebell, each with between four and fifteen, drooping, tubular, bluepurple flowers on the inner side of a gracefully curving stem. Each flower is narrow, with six backward curving lobes and cream anthers and these features help to differentiate it from the non-native bluebells often found in public parks and gardens. Those plants tend to be erect with the flowers sprouting from all sides of the upright stem and each flower shows blue anthers within a far wider and more open flower than the native Bluebell.

Coastal plants have one thing in common – their fleshy leaves. Modified over time so that the harsh sea winds and sand don’t destroy them, seaside plants are quite different to those found in woodland. A typical coastal species, Sea Bindweed grows really low to the ground, creeping along shingle and sand on long, underground runners. It has pink, trumpet-shaped flowers with a white 5-pointed star-shape emerging and spreading outward from the centre. Its shiny, thick leaves are kidney-shaped. One pretty, very tough little seaside plant is Thrift, a species that readers of my vintage may remember adorned one face of the twelve-sided threepenny piece of our neighbouring island. Thrift shows its head of pink, papery flowers from the end of April, it is hardy and stays in bloom right through July. It grows in clumps with long, skinny, grey-green leaves that curl around the bottom of the flower stems. In saltmarshes and on cliffs, a member of the daisy family that closely resembles the garden plant, Michaelmas Daisy, exhibits violet-blue flowers with deep yellow centres. This is Sea Aster and it seems to thrive in the most demanding conditions of its habitat, whether with its feet wet twice daily by the tide at the edge of the marsh or with scarcely a foothold on a cliffside. One of my own seaside favourites is the Sand Pansy, a small yellow and white cousin of garden pansies. It loves to grow – as its name might suggest – on sand dunes. Damp, boggy areas are home to a group of plant species that is known as ‘carnivorous’. Because the soil is extremely poor in nutrients in bogland, these plants have had to find another way to get their food. Over millennia they have modified their leaves and these leaves bear hairs, each tipped with a little drop of sticky ‘dew’. When a tiny insect lands on a leaf, he or she gets stuck fast and the leaf rolls over, trapping them completely before going on to digest them. Not much is left – just a husk to blow away in the wind. Among these carnivorous plants is the particularly beautiful Large-flowered Butterwort. Found mainly close to the lakes of West Cork or in the mountain valleys of Kerry, in June it is a stunning sight that really demands close scrutiny. Each deep purple flower has a white throat adorned with black lines and white fluffy threads. The flowers are held high enough to ensure that they won’t get stuck to the leaves. In order to search out some of the bogland beauties, could I suggest that the shoes be exchanged for wellies and a couple of trek poles can be a useful means of support on quaky ground. Heathers are commonly found in bogland and one of these – Cross-leaved Heath – grows on quite wet, waterlogged ground where it raises round drooping, pink to magenta bell-shaped flowers on wiry stems right through to October. Narrow, needle-like leaves growing in whorls of four along the thin stems help with the identification. Some of the most magnificent jewels of

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bogland are the orchids. These are not the easiest to identify and they also hybridise occasionally which doesn’t really help, but don’t let that put you off examining them, even if only for their beauty. The two most common from May to July are the Spotted-orchids. The extremely variable Heath Spotted-orchid likes to grow in peaty or acid soil where it displays small, elaborately decorated flowers in varying shades from pale lilac through to purple.

These are borne in erect spikes on stems that are sheathed by narrow, lanceolate, dark-spotted leaves, while its lower leaves are larger and broader. Common Spottedorchid prefers fens, marshes and neutral or calcareous soil, roadsides and damp meadows. Superficially quite similar to the Heath Spotted-orchid, the simplest way of telling them apart is to examine the lower lips of the flowers. In Heath Spotted-orchid, it is wide, frilly and has a small central lobe whereas in Common Spotted-orchid, the lower lip has three lobes with the central lobe jutting out prominently. Finding either is always a thrill.

Meadows are hard to beat, especially on a bright summer day when there is a slight breeze and the flowers seem to be dancing in the sunlight. Aptly named Meadow Buttercup holds its head high, tossing its stems of shiny yellow flowers and feathery leaves in the gentle summer air. Oxeye Daisies (AKA Dog Daisies) are larger versions of the little daisies that grow on garden lawns with a large circle of white ‘petals’ (botanically known as ‘ray florets’) around a spherical clump of tiny yellow ‘disc florets’. At the base of the flower stem, dark green, spoonshaped leaves form a rosette and there are more ornate leaves further up. The word ‘daisy’ comes from Old English ‘day’s eye’ because the flowers open up as the sun rises.

But it’s not always necessary to travel far around Ireland in order to come across wildflowers. One of my own preferred habitats for finding new treasures is, believe it or not, on waste ground. Scarlet Pimpernel, Field Forget-me-not, Common Field-speedwell, Garlic Mustard and many other flowering plants pop up when the soil has been disturbed and it is always worth a glance as you pass by. Even the cracks in the pavement can bring surprises; all it needs is to keep an eye out and you may be delighted by some find – new to you if not to plant science! For help with identification, may I

Scarlet Pimpernel Common Field Speedwell

suggest ‘The Wildflowers of Ireland – A Field Guide (Second edition)’ available from all good bookshops.

Three copies of The Wildflowers of Ireland – A Field Guide To be won!

Senior Times, in association with the publishers, Gill Books, are offering three copies of Zoe Devlin’s magnificent book in this competition.

To enter, simply answer this question: What is the other name for Honeysuckle?

Send your entries to Wild Flower Competition, Senior Times, PO Box 13215, Rathmines, Dublin 6. Or email: john@slp.ie The first three correct entries drawn are the winners. Deadline for receipt of entires is 28th June 2022.

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Street Furniture Are you sitting comfortably?

Or perhaps not. Maeve Edwards bemoans the lack of public seating in Ireland compared to countries like Norway.

Bergen..where it’s easy to take the weight of your feet..

These days, I remind myself of my mother. Well, if truth be told, I remind myself of my mother all the time! What is it Oscar Wilde said: ‘All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his!’

When my mother was in her earlyseventies, she began to need a rest if she was standing or walking too long. If we were out and about on one of our shopping expeditions in Dublin, she’d say: ‘Oh, I need to sit down and take the weight off my feet!’ With the youthful arrogance of the 40 year old daughter, I’d reply: ‘You’re grand. We’ll go and have a cup of tea in Arnotts’.

There was never anywhere to sit in Henry Street, so we’d have to detour into a shop and ask for a chair. This was in the days when she wouldn’t be seen dead using a walking frame, and long before I started bringing a wheelchair with us everywhere we went.

Chemists were always the best bet. Indeed, to this day they still provide a chair for their customers to sit on while they wait for their prescription to be filled. If we were in Clery’s in O’Connell Street, a helpful shop assistant would always oblige, even if it was only to give us a small step ladder or stool. Better still, if we were anywhere near the furniture section, we’d settle ourselves down on the easy chairs and couches until my mother felt able to get going again. But there were never any seats provided for customers, other than those in the restaurant or café, where you had to pay for the privilege of sitting down.

And in that thirty year span, nothing has changed! There are still no seats to be had in Dublin’s main outdoor shopping areas. Shopping Centres, it must be said, are more enlightened and do provide good, if minimal, seating.

All this came into sharp focus on my recent (post Covid) visit to Bergen in Norway to visit my grandchildren. Between my last visit and this one, I needed to sit down more than I had before. I found myself mimicking my mother’s actions all those years ago and looking around me for a seat when we were out and about. But, unlike Ireland, there are seats everywhere in Norway. In shopping

Unlike Ireland, there are seats everywhere in Norway: In shopping areas, along pavements, on street corners, under trees..

areas, along pavements, on street corners, under trees. And all of them are in use, not just by people of my age, but by all ages, particularly young parents with babies in buggies. There are, believe it or not, picnic benches outside office and civic buildings where workers gather at their breaks. There are colourful seats squeezed between buildings. Every spare piece of ground seems to have a seat, sometimes surrounded by flowers. There is a wonderful south facing tiered seating area in Oslo overlooking the waterfront. It is favoured by the young where they gather at weekends to soak in the sunshine in the company of their friends.

I did a little research into outdoor seating in my native Dublin city, and what I learnt in a nutshell was: if there are no financial benefits to providing seating in an outdoor retail setting, then there won’t be any. Yes, there are plenty of seats in St. Stephen’s Green, but there are none at all in Grafton Street. If my mother was still with us today and she and I were journeying from Grafton Street down to Henry Street, we’d have to detour into the Seamus Heaney exhibition in the Bank of Ireland to find a place to sit. One would have to be a moral philosopher or an economist to discover why the Norwegians thinking on this is so different to ours.

It seems the powers that be in Ireland are only interested in consumers. They are not interested in the father or mother who wants to feed their one year old baby in a quiet place on a street bench. Similarly, they don’t want older people clogging up their shopping streets, sitting on seats and chatting with their friends. Retail outlets don’t want you sitting down. They want you on your feet spending. And if you must sit down, they don’t want you on a park bench or happy under a tree with your packed lunch.

No, they want you in sandwich bars and coffee shops, buying their products. My local football park, unbelievably, removed all its seats ten years ago and never replaced them. When I asked why, they said because it ‘encouraged anti-social behaviour’. We Dubliners might say the same about the River Liffey boardwalk.

But the difference is this: The Norwegians, to counter this problem, provided more seats, not less. They don’t take them all away if there’s a problem. They put more of them in place, so that everyone has a place to sit. Now, there’s a novel way of thinking. Would that our Dublin City Council could be so enlightened?