Tiny wonders

Over the Easter weekend we ventured forth to the north coast to Wheal Coates above Chapel Porth. The weather was stunning but really quite cold and the South West Path which you can see above was quite busy with keen walkers.

The cliff tops are covered in Heather and Gorse that has been blasted low and compact by the constant wind...

it's like a rippling sea of browns and muddy greens as far as the eye can see.

Usually visitors are so blown away by the huge views...

that they miss the tiny flowers at their feet, so I thought I would try and document them and see how many of them I could identify. I'm not great on wild flowers so I photographed everything I could and searched out my Wildflowers of Cornwall book (by David Chapman £5.95) when I got home. 

So here goes, I may need your help.

Drifts of lovely Violets, this one I knew, but is it a Dog Violet or a Sweet Violet? Well I'm leaning towards Dog, but I may be wrong. They were so pretty pushing up through the grasses and heather roots and loving the sun.

I'm going to stick to the common names for my tiny wonders, it seems apt somehow and they do make me smile. They are so very no nonsense - positively uncomplimentary in the most part and certainly not over effusive or wordy. As with this one - Common Scurvy-grass! (Perhaps paint manufacturers could take note, instead of spring whisper green they could go for Scurvy-grass green)

Anyway, I digress, the Scurvy-grass was tucked away in little turns in the path and dips in the ground.

This is Lousewort, apparently semi-parasitic which sounds nasty for such a sweet looking plant, but perhaps again the name tells a tale!

Sun Spurge, a splurge of lively lime green amongst the rather tired and faded greens of the clifftops. This was in a sunny spot behind a wall, sheltered from the harshest of the wind.

The lovely dark buds of Thrift, and the first paler flowers. This grows all over the Cornish Coast as well as in gardens and hedgerows and it's thought this is at the root of its name - it thrives! Folklore says that if you have Thrift in your garden you will never be poor - needless to say I haven't got any, even worse I actually managed to kill some!

Tormentil - this was creeping around amongst the roots and we've had it in our lawns in the past. I prefer it on the coast, far too many things grow in my lawn - none of them grass!

I think the next two are different colours of the same plant, although they were the trickiest to identify. I think they are Milkwort but please do correct me if I'm wrong. The leaves were so completely buried that I couldn't use those for identification at all. It does come in pink...

but more usually purple and sometimes even white.

In sheltered spots where the grass had grown up and the wind prevented from blasting things flat, the not so tiny Three Cornered Leeks were thriving...

and mounds of Sea Campion were already forming although the flowers will be much more plentiful in a month or so.

Lastly I think my favourite, such a delicate blue and such a beautiful flower...

the Spring Squill.

It's a Scilla and will flower until June. They were sprinkled like little silvery stars across the cliff tops and took my breath away - I don't think I've ever come across them before (or perhaps I just wasn't paying attention)

So the Coast was awash with tiny specks of colour and in some places even this early in the year they had massed together to create a big splash...

and no trip to the coast can go by without the obligatory Gorse photograph (if only there was smellivision - I do love its coconut fragrance).

I even saw my first Foxglove. In the couple of weeks since Easter they have come out in other places, but this was my first one this year.

SUMMER'S ON ITS WAY!