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This year on National Meadows Day, we are campaigning for the protection of irreplaceable meadows – and we need your help!
Our wildflower meadows are a powerful ally in the fight against climate change – but they are in trouble!
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Read in: EnglishCymraeg
Reverse the red
Join Senior Ecologist Sarah Shuttleworth for a deadwood date, as she takes a deep dive into the wood wide web.
Elfcups are red
Roundheads are blue
Fungi and plants,
Share a connection? it’s true…
Although you might associate autumn with fungi, the organisms are still there under the surface – it’s just the fruiting bodies like mushrooms and toadstools we tend to see in later months.
It’s under the surface where a large proportion of fungi are directly connected to other plants roots via the fungi’s mycelial network, root-like structure made of branching, thread like hyphae.
Virtually all plants on earth form these relationships, with only about 5-10% of plants not relying on these fungal friendships.
Mycorrhizal is the name we give the type of fungi that can tap into the root cells of plants. The fungus gets its energy requirements and carbon from the plant, and the plant gets nitrogen, phosphorus and zinc from the fungi, as well as improved access to water.
This network of fungi mycelium and plant/tree roots is often affectionately referred to as the ‘Wood Wide Web’.
The infamous, bright red toadstool Fly Agaric Amanita muscaria has mycorrhizal relationships with birch trees, pines and spruces, so they are mostly found near some of these species.
Velvet Shank Flammulina velutipes can still be spotted growing on stumps and trunks of dead hardwood trees, particularly Ash, Beech and Oak. They have caramel to orange-coloured caps and grow in overlapping tiers.
Jelly Ear Auricularia auricula is another one you can spot, looking almost exactly like ears made of jelly on dead or dying wood, particularly Elder trees.
Fungi are vital to life on earth as well as providing an entire kingdom of wonder and magic. We still don’t know 90% of the fungal species estimated to be present on the planet. From the species we do know about we benefit from them in so many ways – from nutrient recycling, edibility, making food products, medicines, manufacturing, biomaterials as well as natural wonder.
We are already starting to lose known species. In fact, the latest data from the IUCN shows that out of 1,318 species (including 134 lichenised fungi) have been assessed by the IUCN, 411 of these are now recognised as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered. A further 110 listed as near threatened. Globally we are risking losing species we don’t even know about yet, with all their potential uses and beauty lost forever.
Read our top 10 wild, wacky and wonderful facts about the world of fungi here.
Scarlet Elfcup Sarcoscypha austriaca is one of the most striking species being bright red and is one you can find out and about between December and April.
They’re just as interesting as they are beautiful – did you know that the name “elfcup” comes from folklore, where woodland elves were said to drink or bathe in water collecting in the cups of the fungus.
Learn more about amazing species like Scarlet Elfcup as well as the incredible fungi kingdom here.
Our annual citizen survey campaign Waxcap Watch is making a big difference to fungus conservation work.
It’s not just trees that capture and store carbon – our meadows and grasslands can play an important role too.
A journey to return one of the UK’s rarest wildflowers to the wild has made a major step to success.
The iconic orchid, Lady’s-slipper, was believed to have been driven to extinction in the UK by the early part of the 20th century as a result of over-collecting and habitat loss.
However, in 1930 a single plant was discovered growing in a remote part of the Yorkshire Dales. The location was kept secret for decades, during which time volunteers frequently checked on the plant to make sure it wasn’t dug up and stolen.
A reintroduction programme was planned with the ambition of reinstating self-sustaining populations of the orchid in the wild. Now, decades of work have finally paid off.
Last summer, the first new naturally occurring Lady’s-slipper Cypripedium calceolus plant was discovered in the wild for almost 100 years. The team who discovered the plant included Plantlife, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Natural England, the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) and Chester Zoo.
This incredible moment for plant conservation was decades in the making.
Some 2 years ago, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, in partnership with Plantlife, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, BSBI and the National Trust received a grant from Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme to continue and extend the work to recover Lady’s-slipper.
This work involved protecting the habitat of the remaining wild Lady’s-slipper plant, rearing lots of new orchid seedlings and planting out orchids into former haunts.
Then last June, the team were delighted to discover an entirely new plant at one of the reintroduction sites. This means the orchids that were planted out have managed to cross pollinate and set seed,, which then successfully germinated and established in the wild.
Lady’s-slipper, like other orchids, has tiny seeds and has long proven difficult to cultivate from seed. It took many years to refine the technique for hand pollination, discover the best time for seed capsule collection, germinate the hand-collected seeds and successfully grow-on mature individuals that were strong enough to be planted out in the wild.
Over the years, Kew has led the development of propagation techniques for the orchid. The young plants were then transferred to the hands of volunteer orchid-specialists, managed by the National Trust, who nurtured the plants for several years before they were ready to be planted out.
Trials have shown that larger plants – which are more rapidly able to get their roots down into rocky ground – grow better in the wild then smaller ones. This means, many of plants which were planted out in 2024 and 2025 were over 10 years old!
Together with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, BSBI, Natural England and Kew, we identified suitable sites for planting out orchids back into the wild.
Lady’s-slipper are the crowning glory of Britain’s wildflowers – one of the rarest and most impressive. Its rescue from the brink is one of the UK’s most fascinating lost and found stories, and a hopeful symbol of what can be regained when partners work together to carefully reintroduce plants back into the wild.
The distribution of Lady’s-slipper used to once stretch from Cumbria to Derbyshire. But as a result of over-collecting and habitat loss, the plant was believed extinct in the UK by the early part of the 20th century.
During the Victorian era it fell victim to the orchid hunting craze known as ‘orchidelirium’. Explorers would be sent off by wealthy collectors with the mission of finding new species of the delicate and beautiful orchids. Sadly, this led to Lady’s-slipper’s decline.
Find out more about the Lady’s-slipper including how and where to spot it.
Despite this wonderful step to success, there is still work to be done. The project team will continue their work to help the Lady’s-slipper and it’s hoped that if funding is secured more self-sustaining populations of the plant will be created.
If you would like the chance to see Lady’s-slipper, you can visit Kilnsey Park near Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales in late May and early June. More information here (www.kilnseypark.co.uk).
This year Plantlife has secured more funds from Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme to monitor previous reintroductions and explore the environmental and habitat factors which correlate with various measures of success. So that future reintroductions and reinforcements can be targeted to locations that are most likely to successfully support self-sustaining populations.
Photo credits: Kevin Walker and Dr Elizabeth Cooke
A journey to return one of the UK's rarest wildflowers to the wild has made a major step to success.
Sun, sand, sea and wildflowers – why not add finding flowers to your list of beach time activities this summer.
It’s not just animals that have DNA in their cells, plants and fungi do too – and understanding it can help us with hard to identify plants.
The peat-rich Flow Country, which our Munsary Peatlands are part of, has been given the same standing as the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon.
This marks a special moment for Scottish wild plants, fungi and the wildlife that call it home.
With the same standing as the Pyramids and the Great Barrier Reef, The Flow Country has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status – marking a magnificent moment for Scottish wildlife.
Deep within this historic landscape is our own Munsary Peatlands, which is an incredibly special place for plant life. One of the most extensive peatlands left in Europe, our Munsary Nature Reserve is key for tackling the ongoing climate crisis.
Alistair Whyte, Head of Plantlife Scotland said: “The Flow Country may be less well-known than the Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon and the Pyramids but it is cause for great celebration that it today has achieved the same standing as those rightly revered places on Earth. Recognition of the special significance of this wet and wild habitat in northern Scotland, where ancient peat can be as deep as a double-decker bus, demonstrates a growing recognition of the importance of peatlands to plants, people and planet.”
This historical moment also means the Flow Country has become the world’s first peatland World Heritage Site.
After years of hard work, we are thrilled that The Flow Country, in northern Scotland, has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – a special moment for Scottish wild plants, fungi and the wealth of the wildlife they support.
UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of natural and cultural heritage around the globe considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. What makes the concept of World Heritage so special is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all people, irrespective of where they are located.
The list of World Heritage Sites is as varied as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia to the Pyramids of Egypt – and now that list includes the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland, located near Lybster in Scotland (among just over 30 sites currently in the UK).
Munsary, a vast and undulating plain of blanket bog, is home to a huge variety of wildlife including some rare and threatened species.
This historic landscape is the most intact and extensive blanket bog system in the world. As well as being very important for biodiversity, it is also classed as an Important Plant Area (IPA). IPAs are key sites for exceptional botanical richness and identified as the best places for wild plants and their habitats.
So far, 147 species of vascular plants have been recorded at Munsary including the nationally-scarce Small Cranberry and a patch of Marsh Saxifrage, discovered in 2002, which is one of the largest colonies in Britain. The reserve in Caithness is also home to a Bog Orchid, a tiny yellow-green orchid which is so slight as to be almost invisible in the few bogs where it grows.
But, healthy peatlands – like Munsary – are more than just wildlife havens; they also have a vitally important role as we tackle the climate emergency. In fact, the vast expanse of pristine peat formed over many millennia at Munsary locks up a staggering two million tonnes of carbon.
Some species to look out for inlcude:
A special feature at Munsary is an unusual-looking area of dark-watered pools, high on a dome of peat, called dubh lochans. This area is particularly diverse, with pools of different shapes, sizes and depths, vegetated pools, and open water, ridges, and hummocks.
Even a visitor who has never studied mosses can spot differences between those forming the peat. Some form neat, rounded mounds, others are brownish or reddish tufts, while others make a deceptive green lawn, floating over water of an uncertain depth.
The drier areas of bog moss are home to many characteristic bog plants: Bog Asphodel, with spikes of yellow flowers, Common Cottongrass, with many white cottony heads in summer, and hare’s-tail cottongrass with just a single, fluffier head. Three species of heather grow here and plenty of sedges too, including such hard-to-find species as few-flowered sedge, flea sedge and bog-sedge.
Insect-eating plants lurk beside streams and wet pools: butterwort, with a basal rosette of broad, yellow-green leaves on which small insects stick, and round leaved and great sundew, with long red hairs on their leaves curving over to entrap their prey.
Peatlands are home to some of the UK’s most distinctive plant communities – they have evolved in response to the low-nutrient conditions. This has led to some remarkable adaptations such as the insect-eating sundews and butterworts, and the spongy blankets of colourful spagnum mosses.
They are also one of our most important terrestrial carbon sinks. But when bogs are drained or the peat is exploited, the peat gets exposed to the air and begins to break down, releasing carbon dioxide. This turns a huge carbon store into a vast emitter, contributing to climate change. Read more here.
Thanks to Training to ID a rare moss species, numbers at one site where it is found in Scotland, tripled in just one afternoon!
Join us to delve into the secrets of creating a bright, blooming, buzzing lawn, from when to sow, to how to prep the land.
It’s not just humans and animals that have DNA in their cells, plants and fungi do too.
In fact, DNA barcoding can be used to identify plants, detect invasive species and help conservation work, as our Senior Ecological Advisor Sarah Shuttleworth explains.
Like all living organisms, plants and fungi have DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) in their cells. DNA is the genetic code, which is the blueprint for genes, which gives an organism its specific characteristics. Different species will have a different DNA blueprint (with small variations within that as well) and these can help us tell species apart and see which ones are closely related.
I was recently offered a place on an exciting course to learn all about DNA barcoding and how it can help my work as a botanist.
Put simply, we can compare different DNA blueprints by comparing just a small section of the DNA sequence. This small section is referred to as the DNA barcode. There is a reference library which contains information about many species with their corresponding barcode.
In order to compare DNA barcodes of different species, the shortened sequence (region) needs to be the same region of the comparison species. However, which region you select to shorten and use for comparison is different depending on which type of organism you have. For example, all organisms within the animal kingdom are identified using the same specific DNA region, whilst all plants are identified using a different region.
The DNA region used for barcoding differs between kingdoms:
DNA barcoding relies on a region of DNA that varies significantly between different species to allow the different species to be identified.
First, we need to collect a tiny bit of plant and/or fungi samples for our study. We don’t need much, just a small amount to get the DNA. To get the DNA out, we cut really tiny pieces from the samples. Then, we put these pieces in a tube with a special liquid solution and smush them with a small tool to break the cells apart and release the DNA.
Next, we need to make lots of copies of the DNA which we do by using a special mix of certain chemicals (there are different special mixes for plants and fungi).
To check if we’ve done it right, we use a method called gel electrophoresis. This method is used to separate mixtures of DNA, RNA, or proteins to molecular size (you will see a nice clear line in the gel if it has been successful.) This helps us see if the DNA we extracted is good and whether we can send it to the lab. The lab will then send us the DNA sequence so it can be compared it to other sequences in a big database.
Using these DNA barcoding skills can help us in many ways, including identifying single species or a community of species.
It is quite a technical process but as local groups (mainly fungi recording organisations) are starting to invest in the kit, more people should be able to get involved in DNA barcoding.
I hadn’t had a chance to do anything like this since my first year at university and I was surprised about how much came flooding back to me. The course was a great opportunity to learn and refresh my skills, as well as meet other people with an interest in species identification and conservation.
After more practicing, we hope to use these skills to add to the genomic database and assist our own species recording accuracy.
In the future, perhaps Plantlife can utilise these skill sets for looking at species assemblages on our reserves or places we are hoping to maximise conservation efforts.
Volunteer biological recording group RoAM (Recorders of the Avalon Marshes) at Somerset Wetlands NNR (National Nature Reserve) organised the DNA barcoding course with funding from Natural England through the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment Programme. I was offered a spot on this exciting course due to my work and contacts in a voluntary capacity with the North Somerset and Bristol Fungi Group.
Natural England: EDNA (Environmental DNA) approaches to environmental monitoring are incredibly valuable to Natural England’s work, but recognise their limitations, not least that some groups of fungi, lichen and invertebrates are poorly represented in genomic databases. By helping to train our highly skilled taxonomic recorders with DNA barcoding means better records and more effective eDNA outputs.
The beautiful mountain plant, Rosy Saxifrage, has returned to the wild in Wales after becoming extinct in 1962.
This beautiful mountain plant, that once clung to the cliff edges in Eryri (Snowdonia) has successfully returned to the wild in Wales after becoming extinct in 1962.
The trial reintroduction of Rosy Saxifrage Saxifraga rosacea, led by us, marks a special moment for nature recovery. The plants, which have been maintained in cultivation, have direct lineage to the 1962 specimens.
It is now flowering at a location close to where it was last recorded in the wild – and there are plans in place to boost its numbers now the first trial has taken place.
The species was first recorded in Wales in 1796 by J.W.Griffith (Clark, 1900) and there are up to five records from the 19th century. In the 20th century, there are three records, all in Eryri.
But, it is thought that Rosy Saxifrage slipped into extinction in Wales, primarily as a result of plant enthusiasts over collecting the species, particularly in the Victorian era. Atmospheric pollution is also considered to have played a role. Rosy Saxifrage is not a great competitor with stronger growing plants, so it was impacted by the nutrient enrichment of its favoured mountain habitat.
Each and every native wild plant contributes to the diversity and health of ecosystems and putting Rosy saxifrage back where it belongs restores a lost balance.
The successful reintroduction has been led by our botanist Robbie Blackhall-Miles, Project Officer for the Tlysau Mynydd Eryri (Mountain Jewels of Eryri) conservation partnership project that aims to secure the futures of some of our rarest alpine plants and invertebrates in Wales.
The outplanting took place on land cared for by the National Trust and in future months botanists will conduct surveys to establish places where it will be best to reintroduce the species fully to the wild.
Read more about Rosy Saxifrage here.
Photographs by: Llyr Hughes
We depend on plants and fungi, but their future depends on what elected politicians do for nature.
Plants and fungi don’t have a vote or a voice.
The good news is, you do. So please use your voice and your vote to help plants and fungi at the 2024 general election on 2024
Join us in calling on politicians to take action to restore nature.
They provide shelter, food, medicines, clean air and a wealth of health benefits to humans and animals alike.
Yet 54% of plant species are in decline and 28% of known fungi are threatened with extinction. Centuries of habitat loss, development and persecution through changes in land use and the effects of climate change have led to the UK being among the world’s most nature-depleted nations.
You can use your vote to give plants and fungi a voice at the 2024 general election on 4 July.
With upcoming global environment commitments and nature recovery targets being set in all UK nations, we need determined and rapid action by politicians to reverse the fortunes of our wildlife.
Plantlife is joining forces with 100 other conservation charities in the Nature 2030 campaign calling for five key actions by the next UK Government:
The Nature 2030 actions, if delivered by the next government, would go a long way towards bringing endangered plants and fungi back from the brink of extinction, and restoring our unique, species-rich habitats, such as grasslands and temperate rainforests in England.
These will also help to tackle climate change, create a green economy and improve our own health and wellbeing.
We already work tirelessly across the UK to influence and inspire farmers, local communities and other land managers to help create a world rich in wild plants and fungi. Many aspects of environmental law and policy are devolved. But we need all political parties and all nations’ governments to make things happen at a bigger scale and a faster pace, to bring back our wildlife.
Extraction of peat for gardening and horticulture continues to damage wildlife and our climate, despite government commitments to phase it out. Plantlife is calling on governments and industry to end the use of peat in gardening and horticulture to benefit nature and our climate.
We are calling on governments and the horticultural industry to end the use of peat in gardening and horticulture.
Peatlands and their wild plants in Britain, Ireland and beyond continue to be devastated by the commercial extraction of peat. Damaging peatlands has a knock-on effect on wildlife, carbon stores, flood risk and water quality.
It’s time we stopped this destructive practice through new laws to ban peat sales.
Although governments across the UK have promised to do this and many believe that it is already banned, there are still no laws against selling peat.
Plantlife and its partners in the Peat-free Partnership are campaigning for legislation to ban the use of peat in horticulture in all four nations without further delay.
Our governments’ next steps will decide the fate of our precious peatlands. When will they finally mark the end of a decades-long debate and the beginning of a future where peat is left undisturbed for nature, people, and the planet?
Despite tireless campaigning to stop peat extraction and persuade gardeners to go peat-free, vast quantities of peat from bogs in Ireland, the Baltic states and the UK every year is still used by amateur gardeners and professional horticulturalists each year.
However, with an ever-mounting body of evidence documenting the environmental toll of peat extraction, government commitments and clear public support for a ban, the question is finally not ‘if’ but ‘when’.
A ban on all commercial trade in peat across the UK is needed to provide:
Peat-loving bogbean Menyanthes trifoliata at Plantlife’s Munsary nature reserve, Scotland. Photograph by Richard Lindsay
Peat is plant material which is partially decomposed and has accumulated in waterlogged conditions.
Peatlands include moors, bogs and fens, as well as some farmed land.
Peat bogs are particular types of wetlands waterlogged by direct rainfall. Peat bogs grow slowly, accumulating around 0.5 to 1 mm of peat each year, and the water prevents the plants from decomposing. As a result, many areas of UK peat bog have been accumulating gradually for as much as 10,000 years, and can be up to 10m deep. Due to its slow accumulation, peat is often classified as a fossil fuel.
Commercial peat extraction in the UK and Ireland is largely from raised bogs in the lowlands.
Much less peat comes from blanket bog, which is much thinner and more often found in the uplands in Scotland and western parts of the UK.
Peatlands are home to some of the UK’s most distinctive plant communities. Diverse organisms have evolved in response to the low-nutrient conditions which has led to some remarkable adaptations, like the insect-eating sundews and butterworts, and the spongy blankets of colourful sphagnum mosses.
Peatlands are also one of our most important terrestrial carbon sinks. But, when bogs are drained or the peat is exploited, the peat is exposed to the air and begins to break down, releasing carbon dioxide. This turns a huge carbon store into a vast emitter, contributing to climate change.
Peat bogs also act like a sponge, soaking up rainwater, and can help to reduce flood risk. Water filtered through healthy peat bogs is of a higher quality than water from degraded bogs, making it cheaper to treat as drinking water.
Other plants to find in peatlands such as Plantlife’s Munsary reserve in Scotland include cotton grasses, bog asphodel, rare sedges, cuckooflower, marsh violet, marsh cinquefoil and marsh willowherb. These support a range of butterflies, dragonflies and birds, including snipe and curlews, merlins and skylarks.
IUCN UK Peatland Programme (2011), Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands: Summary of Findings, October 2011
In 2015 more than half of peat used for horticulture in the UK came from the Republic of Ireland, where peat is extracted on a large scale for horticulture and for burning to produce heat and electricity. As peat extraction has declined in the UK, we have increased imports from Ireland, effectively exporting much of the environmental impact.
Put simply, our current use of peat is unsustainable.
Natur Am Byth!
Discover the twisted, gnarled woodlands at the highest, wildest peaks in Wales, as Robbie Blackhall-Miles reveals the secrets of Eryri’s miniature but magical Juniper and Dwarf Willow woodlands.
On the high peaks of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and on the Glyderau there grows a forest that is little more than a foot high. A forest of Juniper Juniperus communis subsp. nana nestled among the rocks in the crags and crevices. They are everywhere, if you look in the right places, creeping through the thin turf and sprawling over rocks.
If you scramble over the jagged ridges of Crib Goch and Crib Y Ddisgl you will find them. On Esgair Felen they tumble down the cliffs and on the upper reaches of the Watkin Path you will be walking through the middle of this ‘coedwig fach’ (little forest). Y Lliwedd, one of the satellite peaks of Yr Wyddfa, holds the largest of these forests and here you can’t fail to notice them, although you may not realise they are trees.
Their twisted and gnarled trunks keep close to the ground, bonsaied by the cold and the wind in the exposed locations in which they grow. These small trees are glacial relics from a time between the ice ages, like many of our Arctic – Alpine species.
They are clinging on literally for dear life in the least accessible locations in our mountains where they find refuge from the goats and the sheep and the deep time history of clearance of our mountain woodlands.
These Juniper plants, alongside Dwarf Willown Salix repens, are the fragmented upper reaches of a special type of woodland that has almost disappeared from the mountains of Eryri.
A woodland of low growing scrubby willows, junipers and other ‘Krummholz’ trees and shrubs. ‘Krummholz’ is a German word that is used to describe dwarfed gnarled trees that push high into the mountains to eke out their existence in a tangled and contorted state.
This scrubby, fairy woodland would have once spread from about 450 metres in altitude, the natural treeline, almost to the summits of Eryri. Elsewhere in Britain it is found in the Scottish Highlands and there are fragments of it in the Lake District. It still just about exists here in Wales on the edges and ledges where people and grazers have never ventured.
The trees of Eryri are under recorded, with limited records of trees in the high mountains, so there is still so much more to understand about these sky-high forests.
Recently, whilst out climbing, I discovered a tree species I was not expecting on a ledge, a Bird Cherry Prunus padus. The discovery of this cherry links our mountain woodlands even more directly to those of Scotland where Bird Cherry is a common feature.
Read more about the work Natur am Byth! is doing through the Tlysau Mynydd Eryri project to better understand these tiny but fascinating forests, alongside Bangor University.
Juniper growing on the steep cliffs of Eryri
Restoration of this mosaic of alpine woodland comes with great benefits. This habitat is ecologically vital, for invertebrates’ montane trees and shrubs are particularly important and many of these woody species support high diversity of endemic ectomycorrhizal fungi. Additionally, mountain woodland habitat and willow scrub can provide protection against extreme weather for rare tall herb and alpine plant communities which would otherwise be exposed and struggle to persist in alpine environments.
The increasing diversity enabled by these wooded upland communities has positive impacts for small mammals and birds such as Ring Ouzel. Succession in these wooded habitats builds soil organic matter through their leaf litter. These woodlands reduce erosion by building these soils and halt water runoff which reduces the impacts of flooding.
So, if you are planning a trip up Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) any time soon, keep an eye open for the forest you are walking through and take a moment to stop and think about what the mountains may have looked like before their woodlands almost disappeared, the other species that were lost with them and the way they could look again.
Want to support our work? However you choose to support, you will be helping to champion wild plants and fungi, helping us to protect nature, tackle the impacts of climate change and support people and communities.
Discover the gnarled woodlands on the wildest peaks in Wales, as Robbie Blackhall-Miles reveals the secrets of Eryri’s miniature but magical Juniper forests.
Whether it’s your back garden, local park, community field or lawn, wildflower meadows are amazing spaces with so much to offer.
Did you know that the Wild Leek has its roots in Welsh culture dating back thousands of years?
Discover its fascinating history with Robbie Blackhall-Miles and Lizzie Wilberforce, and why we think it deserves the spotlight on St David’s Day.
The nodding yellow heads of spring-flowering daffodils are now our most recognisable symbol of St David’s Day; indeed, they’re a symbol of Wales itself. However, daffodils are relative newcomers to this scene, dating only to the 19th century as an emblem for the country. The Leek, however, has been a symbol of Wales for so long that its stories date back to St David himself, who is thought to have died in the year 589.
Legend describes how Welsh soldiers were ordered to identify themselves by wearing a Leek on their helmet, as they fought the Saxons in the north of England and the Midlands, under the command of King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd.
As with all such oral histories so long and so widely told, there are many different variations of this legend; however, the long presence of the Leek across many centuries of Welsh history is undeniable.
Most of us now think of Leeks as the large, cultivated vegetable we see in supermarkets – not at all suitable for attaching to a helmet in battle! However their genus, Allium, also contains a number of species that are either native, or ancient introductions to Britain. These have a far lengthier heritage than the domesticated vegetable, and would have been growing in north Wales at the time of both King Cadawladr and St David.
One of these is Allium ampeloprasum var. ampleoprasum, a variety of the Wild Leek that still grows today in Anglesey. It is a large plant, growing up to 2m high, with a dense spherical flowerhead of pink-purple flowers. This would certainly have made a distinctive and plausible addition a soldier’s helmet. Could this be the real Leek of Welsh legend?
Wild Leek isn’t actually native to Britain – but it’s one of the archaeophytes, meaning that it was introduced by humans long ago – perhaps by traders, hundreds of years before the time of St David. It’s likely that it would have been grown and valued by the people of north Wales for its nutritional and medical properties.
Evidence for this can be found in The Red Book of Hergest (c. 1375-1425). This is one of the most important books ever written in Welsh, and it is a compilation of mythology, poetry, and chronicles of the time. It includes contemporary medical texts, which name Leeks in many recipes for treatments and cures.
The regular appearance of Leeks in other, later texts also suggests that the plants were quite readily available to the people of Wales. They must have been much more common than they are today.
Sadly, Wild Leek is now considered at risk of extinction in Wales, with small populations remaining only on Anglesey, and on Steep Holm and Flat Holm islands. However, a healthy population is held in cultivation by Plantlife Cymru’s Robbie Blackhall-Miles.
This will help to secure the long-term safety of this now rare species in Wales. Given its fascinating and long association with the communities of Wales, possibly even St David himself – this is surely to be celebrated- especially on St David’s Day.
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