Come and be part of a global voice for wild plants and fungi
Help wildlife, connect with nature and take part in No Mow May – straight from your garden by letting the wildflowers grow (in May and beyond!)
There are many different ways you can go the extra mile for Plantlife – from organising a bake sale, running the London Marathon or planning your own plant-themed event.
Our corporate partners benefit from 35 years of experience in nature restoration so they can achieve real impact.
Become a Plantlife member today and together we will rebuild a world rich in plants and fungi
Primula vulgaris
A sign that spring is on the way! Primrose’s sunny yellow flowers are a common sight across the UK.
The name derives from the Latin prima rosa meaning ‘first rose’ of the year, despite not being a member of the rose family. In different counties of England it is also referred to as Butter Rose, Early Rose, Easter Rose, Golden Rose and Lent Rose.
Pale yellow, green-veined, flowers, 3cm across, borne singly on stalks. Rosette of wrinkled leaves tapering gradually to stalk, each up to 15cm long.
In large populations there is a variation in the colour, texture and size of primrose flowers. Native species can produce flowers in shades ranging from pale cream to deep yellow.
Bizarre forms include an umbellate form in which flowers form a spray on top of a longer stalk similar to a Cowslip, and doubles.
Woodland clearings, hedgebanks, waysides, railway banks and open grassland preferring damp, clayey soils.
You can find Primrose appearing throughout Spring.
Primrose is a native plant in Britain, and its distribution remains stable. Its decline in areas of East Anglia – following a series of hot, dry summers from 1970 onwards – hints at a possible threat posed by climate change.
The main threat is the loss of habitat. Inappropriate management of woodland and waysides can all contribute to a local decline.
Why not take along Plantlife’s winter wildflower spotter sheet and see what common species from catkins to snowdrops you can spot out and about?
A spiny evergreen shrub with yellow flowers.
Few plants make such an impact on the landscape as flowering gorse, through both its colour and scent. The latter is a distinctive coconut and vanilla smell, said to be quite pungent to some individuals, but weak to others.
The cracking of the seed-pods in hot sunshine is said to sound similar to the clacking calls of Stonechats which perch on its sprigs.
Banks, heaths and sea-cliffs. Also a signature plant of rough open space and commonland.
Folklore says you should only kiss your beloved when gorse is in flower. The good news is that either common gorse or the closely related western gorse is pretty much in bloom whatever the time of year! In fact, a few yellow flowers can generally be seen even in harsh winter months.
Its peak time, however, is April and May when almost all the plant is covered in bright yellow blossom.
It was voted the County Flower of Belfast.
Before the Industrial Revolution, gorse was valued as a fuel for fires and kilns, as well as baker’s ovens. After crushing the spines (e.g. in cider mills), gorse also made valuable feeding for stock including cattle and horses in wintertime.
Straight stems of gorse make excellent walking-sticks and the flowers can be used to make a Gorse wine. It also makes a convenient anchor for washing, acts as a chimney brush and, when in flower, as a source of colour for Easter eggs. Gorse and heather have been bound together to make besom brooms. Gardeners have been known to lay chopped gorse over emerging peas to deter pigeons and mice.
In order to prevent over-exploitation, there have historically been a wide range of conditions on harvesting, such as in Oxfordshire where people were only allowed as much as they could carry on their backs. In Hertfordshire there were regulations prohibiting cutting outside a certain parish and digging-up entire bushes. In some places even the type and size of cutting implements have been specified.
Three species of Gorse that exist in the UK are Ulex europaeus, Ulex gallii and Ulex minor:
Usnea articulata
It is most common in the south west’s temperate rainforest zone.
Favouring well-lit conditions and dry, open situations, it is most often found in tree canopies or on lower branches where trees are well-lit, in woodland or on scattered trees in open moorland. You can also find it on the ground after stormy weather.
Other large, bearded lichens include Usnea ceratina, Usnea dasopoga and Usnea hirta but these lack the sausage-like lobes.
Largely restricted to south-western parts of the UK with most records in south-west England.
Juniperis communis
A prickly, sprawling evergreen shrub in the Cypress family with short spiky leaves.
Juniper blooms with small yellow flowers, followed by ‘berries’ – actually fleshy cones, that start green but ripen to blue-black.
These are famously used to flavour gin and certain meat dishes particularly game and venison. Used whole they impart a bitter, crunchy bite to savoury dishes. In fact, the word “Gin” derives from either genièvre or jenever – the French and Dutch words for “juniper”
Juniper is dioecious, which means that it is either male or female, unlike most tree species. The form of individual bushes varies from being low and prostrate at the one extreme to cylindrical and conical at the other.
In the Saving England’s Lowland Juniper project, Plantlife joined forces with landowners, supported by Natural England, to revitalise Juniper across southern England. 48 patches of land at nine sites in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire were scraped back to create a grassland habitat suitable for Juniper to regenerate. Read the full story here.
Did you know that on the high peaks of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and on the Glyderau there’s a forest that is little more than one foot high? A forest of Juniper nestled among the rocks in the crags and crevices. Discover the twisted, gnarled woodlands at the highest, wildest peaks in Wales, here.
Through the Tlysau Mynydd Eryri project, we worked with Bangor University to undertake a study to work out what the composition of this woodland may have been in Wales.
Visit our project page here to find out more.
Tephroseris integrifolia subsp. maritima
The South Stack Fleawort is found along a small section of the North Wales Coastal Path on Ynys Gybi (Holy Island).
Found only between Parth Dafarch and RSPB South Stack Nature Reserve
Grassy cliff tops and vegetated gullies
May and early June
Plantlife supports a project to understand why this subspecies of Fleawort is only found in this small area of Ynys Gybi and the ecological requirements of the plants.
Saxifraga cespitosa
Tufted Saxifrage grows at a number of sites in Scotland and just a couple of boulders in Wales, where it is extremely threatened by spring droughts and lack of winter snow cover.
This arctic alpine plant prefers to grow on cliff ledges and boulders on calcium rich rocks in Eryri and the Scottish Highlands
This species flowers from May through to early June however the inaccessibility of its sites makes it a very difficult species to see in the wild.
Tufted Saxifrage was first discovered in the wild in Wales in 1796 but wasn’t seen between the late 1800’s and the 1950’s when it was rediscovered by Evan Roberts (the first warden of Cwm Idwal National Nature Reserve).
In the 1970’s its population was bolstered by a conservation reintroduction and it saw a population high in the 1980’s. Since then it has seen a steady decline and the Welsh population of Tufted Saxifrage now (2023) numbers just seven plants in the wild.
Through the Tlysau Mynydd Eryri Project (part of Natur am Byth!) we are successfully cultivating Welsh Tufted Saxifrage plants with a plan to enable them to move higher up the mountains of Eryri to sites where they will see snow for longer in the winter.
In Scotland, we are at the beginning of our journey to protect this delicate plant through our Resilience and Recovery, Helping Rare Species Adapt to a Changing World project. Read more about our work with Tufted Saxifrage here,
Read about Natur am Byth! A Green Recovery project to save vulnerable species from extinction in Wales, including the Tufted Saxifrage
Saxifraga rosacea subsp. rosacea
The Irish Saxifrage was once found in Wales too. Its upright buds and bright white flowers distinguish it clearly from the other ‘mossy’ saxifrages found in the British Isles.
Several localities in Ireland and once known from just one locality in Eryri, Wales.
Calcium rich rock ledges and crevices.
You can see this species flowering in cultivation at the National Botanic Garden of Wales during May and June
Rosy Saxifrage is extinct in the wild in Wales. It was last seen in the wild in Wales in the 1960’s.
Richard Roberts discovered a piece of a plant that had been washed down from a cliff whilst he was leading a group on a geology walk. Noticing it was something different he took the piece of plant home and grew it. All the Welsh Rosy Saxifrage material now kept in cultivation came from that small piece of plant. Through the Tlysau Mynydd Eryri Project (part of Natur am Byth!) we plan to reintroduce Rosie Saxifrage to the wild again in Wales.
Armeria maritima
However, there is nothing to match seeing it in its natural habitat: atop dramatic coastal cliffs or astride craggy islands.
Globular heads of pink flowers have stalks 5-30cm long. Flattened, linear, dark green leaves.
Across wild, coastal areas throughout the UK – especially Scotland. As well as rocky cliffs, Thrift can also be commonly found brightening up saltmarshes and other sandy areas.
April to July when it flowers.
Has started to appear inland on roadsides as salting creates favourable conditions.
Thrift growing on the Gower
Thrift growing along the coast
Viola lactea
In fact the second part of its scientific name – lactea – means ‘milky’ in Latin. It has creeping stems originating from a rosette of leaves about its base.
A species of humid heathland and grass heath in southern England, largely confined to key heathland districts including the Wealden and Thames Basin heaths, the New Forest and Dorset heaths, and through much of Devon and Cornwall (though rarely ever commonly).
Pale Dog-violet is a species of humid heathland and grass heath (including the Culm grasslands), favouring areas with short vegetation and considerable bare ground created by burning, grazing or incidental disturbance such as rutting, turf cutting etc.
The species’ greatest threat comes from the cessation of traditional management practices, notably winter swaling (burning of dead grass and dwarf shrubs) and traditional stock grazing, ideally by cattle and/or ponies.
May and June whilst flowering.
Pale Dog-violet in grass
Tuberaria guttata
A flower of the west coast, the largest colonies of Spotted Rock-rose lie on Anglesey’s Holy Island, where it is also the county flower.
Its distinct crimson-spotted flowers are matched by red-flushed leaves.
A handful of colonies on Ynys Mon (Anglesey), Ynys Gybi (Holy Island) and the Llyn Peninsula in Wales. The only location it can be found on the British mainland is at the very end of the Llyn Peninsula
Dry, rocky places.
Flowers from June to August
To see the spotted rock-rose in full bloom you have to catch it at just the right time. It flowers only once during its lifetime and sheds its vivid petals within hours of doing so.
The county flower of Anglesey (Cor-rosyn rhuddfannog) in Welsh is one of the priority species for the partnership project Natur am Byth!. Plantlife are working with the RSPB, Natural Resources Wales and a range of other organisations and individuals to ensure this species is protected and more fully understood. Through working with the RSPB to undertake a full review and baseline survey of the species in 2022 we now have the data at our fingertips to enable this species’ future conservation.
We will keep you updated by email about our work, news, campaigning, appeals and ways to get involved. We will never share your details and you can opt out at any time. Read our Privacy Notice.
