THRIFT ON CHESIL BEACH

Sea Beet  (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima) (I think!)
The white flowers beside it are Sea Campion. (Silene uniflora)

June 1st 2014

Let me first remind you of the context.

(We began this exploration in the last post - Nothing But Stones.)

A sea of stones between sea-and sea.

Where somehow, some plants grow.

Not many. And only on the lower levels. But they do grow.

This Sea Beet plant plant in the picture above is about two feet across.

The focus of this post though is Thrift (Armeria maritima).

Thrift - Ameria maritima. June 1st 2-14

In the foreground, Thrift. Further back - green patches where plants also grow. These in the picture are several feet across but some little islands of green are only twelve inches. Even in these small circles there are Thrift flowers in May.

For an idea of scale - the dots are people climbing to the top of the beach.

A sea of Thrift with the cliffs of Portland beyond. May 6th 2014

In the winter months of early 2014, this part of the world was specially storm tossed. Not only did great waves come over the top of the beach but tides came up higher than usual. The road that runs beside this part of Chesil Beach had to be closed from time to time because it was flooded.



The extraordinaryness of this is hard to explain if you've never been here. And if you have . . . it is probably even harder to understand. For when you see where the sea is meant to be, it is . . . well it's terribly hard to believe that it can have come so far over its usual bounds. But come it did - up and over from one side and in on the tide from the other. So, to my mind, it's not only extraordinary that Thrift can make a mat for itself (along with other sea plants . . . and the odd dandelion that gets in on the act) and grow among pebbles, it's astonishing that it can make such an incredible display where everything has been thoroughly salt-soaked and under water.

May 6th 2014

Here is an individual flower. For those of you who have not met Thrift in person - they look very much like chive flowers. They stand five or six inches high. Their leaves are a mat of spikes; barely distinguishable from mown or cropped grass.

May 12th 2014

This incredible flowering began in late April and has continued right through May.

Now we are at the beginning of June the great expanse of colour has gone, even though there are still many blooms.

Spent Thrift. June 1st 2014.
(Ignore the green furry thing on the left. That's something else.)

But even dying flowers are lovely. And soon there will be seeds.

These Thrift flowers were growing on the other side of the road - next to Portland Harbour.
The ground there is dry, hard earth rather than pebbles. May 14th 2014

Then, next year. It will all happen again. (Though 2014 has, I think, been a specially spectacular year.)

Notes.

Here is the RHS page about Thrift. The description there suggests Thrift will grow almost anywhere - but . . . does it?

If you look at the top left hand side of the picture with the cliffs of Portland, you'll see a cluster of white buildings. This video clip from February shows the sea coming over the beach where they are. (At the very beginning of the clip. After that it's beer barrels and things floating around in the flood.)

Our World Tuesday

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