Some Coastal Plants

Sea Holly, Eryngium maritimum.  Sandwich Bay, 4 July 2015.

I visited a friend at the coast recently, and was taken for a walk, where I saw a range of plants I am not at all used to.  Plants that grow in the coastal dunes, or even in the shingle on the beach, are often quite different from the usual inland plants.  They need to be tolerant of salt, and sometimes of dry conditions, because sand and shingle do not retain moisture.

This Sea Holly is well known, and is quite showy even though its flowers blend in with the leaves.  But the star this time was Viper's Bugloss, first seen off to one side over a dune, then in larger numbers right beside the path.

Viper's Bugloss, Echium vulgare.   Sandwich Bay, 4 July 2015.

Viper's Bugloss, Echium vulgare.   Sandwich Bay, 4 July 2015.

The red anthers protruding from that mass of deep blue flowers give a startlingly colourful effect.

In the general coastal area, this occurs quite often:

Sea Bindweed, Convolvulus soldanella.   Sandwich Bay, 4 July 2015.

At first glance it looks like a large Field Bindweed, which I see scattered freely around the countryside where I live, but closer up I could see that the leaves are a different shape and the flower is too consistently large.  It's called the Sea Bindweed.  It was also in my friend's lawn!

Sea Sandwort, Honkenya peploides.   Sandwich Bay, 4 July 2015.

This succulent little thing grows in big healthy mounds right in the shingle at the top of the beach. I had no idea what it was and had to get it identified as Sea Sandwort on the very useful iSpot site.

Also in the shingle is ..

Yellow Horned Poppy, Glaucium flavum.   Sandwich Bay, 4 July 2015.

Yellow Horned Poppy, Glaucium flavum.   Sandwich Bay, 4 July 2015.

this Yellow Horned Poppy.  It's the poppy flower that is yellow, not the horns, so the last two words are sometimes hyphenated as Horned-poppy.   The horns are the seed pods.

The last beach flower I saw before turning inland again was this ...

Silver Ragwort, Senecio cinerea.   Sandwich Bay, 4 July 2015.

Silver Ragwort.  As you can see, it's not actually in the shingle, but in the sand just above it.

Many of these coastal plants are very decorative.  I would have been interested to see them anyway, but I was amazed by what I actually saw.