I am in two minds about including this in Coastal Wildflowers, I used to always see it growing at Holme Dunes when I took students there to study sand dune succession. We always carried out our studies in the same location, this had been carefully selected by the warden and myself, so that it showed a good example of succession, it was not in a sensitive region of the dunes where ground birds might be nesting or rare plants lived, and it also meant that the warden could monitor the effect of 20 to 40 students carrying out their studies so that if any damage was occurring then he could ask me to move to another area or even to stop carrying out the studies altogether. To be honest I did occasionally look back on the area we had been working on and think it did show some signs of ware, but by the time I next visited which was often just a week later it looked completely back to normal. Also I did pay a reasonable amount to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust for the privilege of taking students there so I think it benefited us all.
The study area finished up just in front of an old second world war bunker, it was still there although the blowing sand had three quarters covered it. Beyond our finish point the Sea Buckthorn started to grow so we had worked our way from the beach with the embryo dunes, through mobile, semifixed and fixed dunes and we just recorded the beginnings of the dune scrub area, which is the penultimate stage in the succession. The final stage is where the scrub becomes woodland and you rarely see that, it was certainly not present at Holme.
On the last few recordings of our transect we would see new species turning up, plants that were more representative of inland habitats, so we saw Stinging nettle, Creeping thistle and we got Rosebay Willowherb. It was not like the Rosebay Willowherb you see in the woodland rides or which used to colonise the banks of railways or which grew in the bomb sites of the East end of London where I played as a boy. No they were quite short, only 30 cm tall and the leaves were often edged with brown and dried up. They did flower but usually only a very short spike of less than 10 flowers. Not surprising as they were a bit out of their comfort zone. I suspect that the army activity in the 1940’s was still having some effect even though it was 40 years on. Disturbed soil and maybe extra nutrients courtesy of the soldiers (no modern plumbing out there) In fact there was still no modern plumbing on Holme Dunes even in the 1980’s to 2000 !!
So like many other plants Rosebay Willowherb does grow on our coastal habitats but it also grows in many other places, it is not a plant you would instantly associate with the coast. However I have seen several photos of fine specimens growing within sight of the sea.
Newhaven with thanks to the National Trust this time.
Coastal Wild flowers 