Nature on our doorsteps: Hardy mountain flowers

Rosaleen Dwyer is the County Heritage Officer at South Dublin County Council – every week she gives us an insight into nature on our doorsteps and the beautiful biodiversity of its plants and wildlife.

THE environment in the mountains can be a challenging place for plants.

Mountain soils like those in the Dublin Mountains are not as fertile as the soils that occur on the flat plains in the rest of the County.

Mountain soils tend to be more peaty, which causes them to hold rainwater and to become waterlogged.

Many plants do not grow well in these conditions.

Mountain weather can also be wetter and colder, with more frequent mists and harder winter frosts.

Despite these challenges, there are still plenty of interesting flowers to be found, and these plants have evolved interesting ways to survive in the harsher conditions.

This low-growing Lousewort plant was seen flowering in the Dublin Mountains on Montpelier Hill

Many do not grow very tall, preferring to keep out of the wind by growing low to the ground.

Also, because flowers with large petals are at risk from bad weather, mountain plants produce small flowers.

These small flowers bloom one after another on a plant over a longer flowering season.

This gives more time for pollinating insects to visit and pollinate them.

The lovely little, pink-flowered, Lousewort has evolved another way to survive in the poor mountain soils.

It adapted by becoming semi-parasitic.

It feeds off the roots of other plants to get the additional nutrients that it cannot find in the poor mountain soils.

Worldwide, there are about 600 different species of Lousewort.

In many countries, it has long been used in herbal medicine as an anti-inflammatory and an anti-bacterial medicine, and it was also once used to treat lice and ticks in farm animals.

Another delicate-looking mountain beauty is Milkwort.

This low-growing plant keeps out of the weather by scrambling around the stems of heather bushes.

Its small flowers are generally bright blue, but it can also produce pink and white blooms.

Milkwort is an important source of nectar and pollen for mountain bees and butterflies, and it too was once used in folk medicine, to help treat coughs and other respiratory complaints.