Cliffhangers

Our coastline is home to a multitude of flora that thrives on a cliff edge. Steven Desmond pays homage to some of the most resilient flowers known to man

Our coastline is home to a multitude of flora that thrives on a cliff edge. Steven Desmond pays homage to some of the most resilient flowers known to man

The brave blooms of our coastal flora are buffeted in the never-ending breeze

AWALK along the coast is a sovereign remedy for a wide range of imaginary ailments. On the clifftop or along the shingly beach, among the rocks or through the shifting dunes, there is a wind-in-the-hair experience to be had, close to the raw power of Nature, which puts our footling daily concerns in perspective. And, all along the way, for those who have the wit to look and think, are the brave blooms of our coastal flora, buffeted in the never-ending breeze, attracting our silent admiration for their delicate beauty in the most demanding of marginal habitats.

It never ceases to amaze me that these flowers choose such tough places to live. The neat green tufts of thrift ( Armeria maritima), so well named, poke up between the slenderest cracks of black rock on the scrambly walk down to the ruins of Cornwall’s Tintagel Castle, hanging over the Atlantic breakers. The pink pom-pom flowers, easily spotted from a distance, seem perfectly content in a place where it would be physically impossible to plant them. It puts all our thinking about compost and nutrients to shame. What a good thing that Nature knows so many things that are beyond human understanding.

Nearby is something for the connoisseur, in an even less promising crevice: the stubby blue flowers of the jauntily named spring squill ( Scilla verna), only found in this corner of England. That there is a fleshy bulb at its base, sandwiched between smooth faces of rock, seems barely credible, but there it is.

On the lonely, narrow spit of Spurn Point, curving south across the mouth of the Humber, many floral beauties lie in wait for those who know. Chief among these is the silvery-blue inflorescence of sea holly ( Eryngium maritimum), a quiet vision of loveliness among its ruff of shapely leaves. Its roots search wide and deep through the banks of blowing sand.

On the other side of the peninsula, a different world appears, only yards away, as a great salt marsh extends upriver, its specialised flora best viewed through binoculars. Long may there be places where humans fear to tread.

Further north, on the Northumberland coast, the dunes are covered in early summer with a thicket of burnet rose ( Rosa pimpinellifolia), densely prickly and covered with white flowers. Between the bushes spread sheets of the bloody crane’s-bill, whose magenta flowers mingle with scattered groups of pyramidal orchids as our boots slowly fill with sand.

In splendid isolation on the Cumbrian coast, along the stony shore of Walney Island, a separate form of the bloody crane’s-bill has evolved, with flowers of the most delicate pink sprawling over the shoreline. Geranium sanguineum var. lancastriense is a special

find for the hunter of native plants, sometimes against the backdrop of a submarine drifting by.

Shingle beaches have their own mystery. Exploring them is an exhausting business due to the slow rate of progress, so that stopping to gaze about is a considerable attraction. It seems unlikely that any plant would elect to live and scatter its offspring over such an apparently barren habitat, but, once again, we were wrong.

A favourite sight along such a shore, such as at Loe Bar south of Helston in Cornwall, are the prosperous clumps of sea kale ( Crambe maritima), elegantly distributed across the gravel as if Gertrude Jekyll herself had spent many hours plotting their disposition. Those wavy, waxy leaves of bluish-green are crowned with off-white flowers, which, so unexpectedly for a cabbage, give off a deliciously sweet scent into the maritime breeze.

Not far away, perhaps against the firmer rocks that edge the lowest fields, we might find the startling yellow flowers of the horned-poppy ( Glaucium flavum). Its name comes from the outlandishly long and curving seedcases that stick up between the flowers, leaving us no doubt as to its identity.

Here and there, tucked away in inhospitable corners along the shore, we find little treasures such as the sea rocket ( Cakile maritima) and the sea stock ( Matthiola sinuata), recognisable by their pastel flowers as the spartan cousins of their garden and countryside counterparts.

Nosing out from grass edges are the pretty pink-and-white trumpets of the sea bindweed ( Calystegia soldanella), whose name invites an uncomfortable frisson, but whose presence in these marginal places we need not fear.

In the tufts of grass along the cliff path, untouched by herbicides and overgrazing, the little purplish-blue flowers of the sheep’s-bit scabious ( Jasione montana), which isn’t a scabious at all, come as a pleasant variation on the banks of shiny Alexanders ( Smyrnium olusatrum) and wild carrot ( Daucus carota). The nearby bluebells ( Hyacinthoides non-scripta) remind us that, once upon a time, this stretch of clifftop was a country lane overhung with trees.

These flowers are survivors of life on the edge, where the land will quite likely slip into the sea one of these winters. All the more reason to go and visit the passing show while it’s still there.