When the children go back to school after Christmas, the landscape looks fairly bleak, with very few flowers to brighten things up. However, a closer look at my vegetable patch revealed this one. Groundsel is usually considered a weed, as it commonly found on waste-ground and in flower-beds and vegetable patches. Its inconspicuous yellow flowers are like tiny, tightly-furled dandelion flowers. And its fluffy seeds blow in the wind like those of the dandelion.
This attractive yellow wildflower can be seen everywhere in Connemara, on roadsides, in the hills, and even on the beach, as in this photo. The yellow flowers have a lovely velvety appearance, and the underside of the leaves have a silvery sheen, which is presumably where its name comes from. It is said that soldiers used to put the leaves inside their boots to sooth their sore feet while marching.
Sea beet (Beta vulgaris) is the ancestor of cultivated crops such as Beetroot and Swiss Chard. Its fleshy leaves are delicious lightly fried with garlic and butter, and they are bursting with vitamins. I found this plant on the salt-marsh by the sea inlet at Rossadillisk, near Cleggan. There were no other sea beet that I could see nearby, so I thought it best not to take any leaves from this one.
Butterwort is a carniverous plant, which is quite common on the nutrient-poor bogs and mountainsides of Connemara. It is easy to spot the bright yellowish star-shaped leaves all year round. It is rarer to see the short-lived purple flowers. The plant traps insects on its sticky leaves, which curl inwards and digest their unfortunate victims.
The Yellow Iris, which I have always known as the Yellow Flag, makes an impressive sight in the marshy parts of Connemara. It likes to grow in very wet ground and its tall yellow flowers can be seen from quite a distance.
I came across this pretty little pale pink flower growing in a narrow, shady crevice in the rocks near the top of Tully Mountain.The delicate pink flowers grow on long, hairy stems. The leaves , which are close to the ground, are slightly succulent with serrated edges. I haven’t found it growing anywhere else in Connemara, but I have identified it as St Patrick’s Cabbage. It is one of a group of rare plants known as the Lusitanian Flora. They are found in the South and West of Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula, but are absent from Britain.
The Bogbean is a very pretty aquatic flower which grows in lakes, ponds and canals. I photographed this plant in a small lake in the West end of Inishbofin. I was surprised to see such an exotic looking plant growing in the bog surrounded by the familiar mosses, rushes, heather and exposed rocks.
This unusual flower grows in large clumps on the shingle shoreline at Rossadillisk, near Cleggan. The white flowers have an interesting bladder-like structure with delicate red veins. Like many seashore flowers, it has fleshy leaves to help it thrive in salty conditions.
The salt marsh at Rossadillisk, near Cleggan has a huge variety of coastal flowers. The sea plantain is one of the less conspicuous ones, but interesting to look at close-up, with its scaly red flower-spikes.
This plant forms dense green mats across the sand on many of the beaches here in Connemara. Its ability to survive on salty gravel and sand make it an important plant for stabilising our sand-dunes and protecting them from erosion. The small white flowers are not particularly impressive, but the pointed fleshy leaves form an amazing pattern when the plants are grouped together in a clump. There are some amazing photos here on the Blog of Connemara Painter, Deborah Watkins.
This tiny flower is so small, you can barely see it, but when I noticed it by the side of the road yesterday I was surprised to see that it had both white and blue flowers on the same plant. That (obviously) is why it is called the Changing Forget-me-not. Apparently the flowers are white when they first emerge, and then they change to blue.
This is another type of plantain growing in the salt-marsh at Rossadillisk. The tiny yellowish flowers are barely visible on the green flower spikes.
The Weather has been very bad throughout Ireland this spring, with very little plant growth, which is causing terrible fodder shortages for farmers. Yesterday I braved the gale-force winds for a walk along the coast in Rosadillisk, near Cleggan. This is one of my favourite spots for flower-spotting and there were plenty of voilets, primroses and sea pinks in bloom. Yesterday I saw my first bird’s foot trefoil of the year. This plant grows abundantly all over Connemara. Its red-tinged yellow flowers look a bit like gorse flowers, but without the prickles, thank goodness. The leaves have three segments like a shamrock, hence the name “trefoil”.
I almost passed these tiny flowers without noticing them the other day. They are some type of Speedwell, but there are so many varieties it is hard to identify them definitively. One half of each flower is white, which leads me to believe that they are Slender Speedwell, but I welcome any advice or corrections to my identification attempts.
I first mistook this yellow pea-like wild flower for Bird’s Foot Trefoil, which grows abundantly throughout Connemara. However, on closer examination, I noticed that it was a climbing plant with tendrils at the tips of its leaves to cling onto other plants. It also comes into flower later in the year than the Bird’s Foot Trefoil.
This beautiful sea holly was growing on the sand dunes at Rossadillisk near Cleggan in Connemara.
This bright pink flower seeded itself in the gravel around our house in Connemara Co Galway. Its small flowers are a vivid pink with yellow centres, but they only open when the sun shines. Luckily we’ve had plenty of sunshine this summer. I have also seen Common Centaury growing on the grassy sand-dunes behind some of our Connemara beaches.
Square-stalked St. John’s-wort grows happily in the damp roadside ditches near my home in Moyard, Connemara. The plant, with its pretty yellow flowers has a long history in herbal medicine, being used to treat depression. In Ireland, it is available only with a doctor’s prescription as it does have possible side effects.
These slightly tatty daisy-like flowers grow along the marshy seashore here in Moyard in Connemara. They don’t seem to mind being being submerged at high tide. I have read that the leaves are edible and very tasty, somewhat similar to the better-known samphire. The internet abounds with recipes for sea aster leaves, but it seems that they are best simply pan-fried for a short time. I plan to give them a try soon,
Meadowsweet is one of the most prolific of summer wild flowers found in the hedgerows of Connemara and throughout Ireland. Its fluffy cream coloured blossoms have a delicate fragrant scent, so reminiscent of summertime. A French visitor of ours collected the blossoms for drying to make a “tisane” or herbal tea, but we never got to taste it! The meadowsweet and purple loosetrife are often found growing together, where they make a gorgeous display of colour.
