Northumbrian coastal flora

The coastal flora was particularly beautiful during our stay in Northumberland in early July. These are some of the highlights.

Pyramidal orchids on the sand dunes at Embleton.

Agrimony on the coastal path south of Howick.

Bloody cranesbill (above and below) at Low Newton.

Common mallow on the coastal path between Low Newton and Football Hole.

Hawkweeds and quaking grass at Football Hole

Lady's bedstraw at Low Newton.

Meadow cranesbill growing close to the beach at Howick (typically crowded Northumbrian beach!) and ..

..... just above the high water mark at Low Newton

A magnificent display of ragged robin on the coastal path south of Howick.

Rest harrow at Low Newton.

Sea mayweed at Budle Bay (top) and on the black dolerite boulders at Dunstanburgh.

Sea pink at Cullernose Point (top) and at Dunstanburgh (above).

Silverweed (showing silvery underside leaves) on the shingle at Budle Bay

Wild carrot at Low Newton

White stonecrop and ....

.... yellow stonecrop, both at Budle Bay

Portpatrick and the Southern Uplands Way

The little harbour of Portpatrick on the Galloway coast is the starting point for the Southern Upland Way, but before climbing the steps to the cliff top at start of the route it's worth taking a look around the harbour because....

.... there are usually black guillemots fishing there, and if you're lucky .....

.... they'll be posing for a photograph on the harbour wall.

...... where there is often a vigorous exchange with others ...

..... that nest in cavities between the building blocks of the harbour wall. These are birds with a startlingly simple colour scheme - sooty black and pure white plumage and wonderful crimson feet with matching interior colour scheme in their bills.

Very approachable birds - although there didn't seem to be as many as when we first visited, in 2006.

There's also a well established herring gull breeding colony on the cliffs as you leave the town, with some vulnerable chicks on narrow ledges ........

.........protected by fierce-looking adults

The first mile or so further on the path skirts a series of sandy bays and in one - Lairds bay , marked as Port Mora/Port Kale on the Ordnance Survey map - lies this fascinating telegraph station, built at the landfall of the first submerged telegraph cable to Donaghadee in Northern Ireland, across what is now known as the North Channel but was then the Irish Channel, in 1853. More recently the building has been a visitor centre but now seems disused. You can still see the frayed cable partially buried in the shingle on the beach: an interesting fragment of telecommunications archaeology.

There's a fine cliff-top flora along this stretch of coast that includes the almost hemispherical umbels of wild carrot. Once these begin to set seed the stalks of the outer clusters of florets elongate and curl inwards, so the ripe seed head resembles a clenched fist.

The cliffs here are festooned with honeysuckle and as you climb the path up from the beach the scent is glorious on a fine summer evening.

Slender St. John's wort, with red undersides to its petals, is also a feature of the cliffs here, as is ...

... the sea spleenwort fern with its leathery fronds, that grows in rock crevices close to the beach, well within reach of salt spray. Fresh water trickling down the cliffs is probably the antidote to this saline assault.

The Enduring Mystery of the Red Carrot Floret

Charles Darwin, and subsequent generations of botanists, have been intrigued by the single red floret that often appears in the middle of the inflorescence of a wild carrot Daucus carota. One hypothesis – that the dark floret acts as a decoy, resembling a fly and attracting further flies to mate with it, thereby improving wild carrot’s chances of pollination - has so far remained unproven, so the conclusion that Darwin came to in 1888* - ‘That the modified central flower is of no functional importance to the plant is almost certain’ still stands. But if you are a naturalist with time to spare, and are prepared to count and statistically analyse the relative numbers of flies on intact infloresceneces and those with the red floret removed, you might still prove him wrong.........
*Darwin, C. (1888) The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species, 3rd edn. John Murray, London, UK.