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The
flowering of
the Mournes
Only half a dozen specimens are now to be found in the Mountains of Mourne
of a hardy little species that led the return of flowering plants in the
inhospitable but slowly warming bleakness left by the departing ice.
Sheep and competitors more favoured by today’s climate have reduced
the yellow-flowered Roseroot to just a handful of survivors, the last
of the  ancient
race, clinging to a difficult life on a small stretch of rock face, rooting
into deep damp crevices.
The roseroot is a botanical treasure of the Mournes, and there are others
waiting to be discovered by anyone who adds interest and fun to their
mountain spring and summer days by seeking them out. Although more than
half the of the total number of species of flora present in Ireland can
be found around the Mournes and their foothills - some 320 species are
listed - their uplands cannot display the diversity of flowering plants,
especially the alpines, to be found around other ranges. And some that
have made a home there are so reclusive that years of exploring the valleys
and slopes might not reveal them. But the weight of a good plant guide
in the haversack can pay a rich dividend in surprises and discoveries,
making it worth the effort; a rare Irish ladies tresses perhaps, or a
stag’s horn clubmoss.
Meanwhile enjoy the company of the more populous blooms that sprinkle
the hills around your feet – bright laughing tormentil, milkwort
and hungry butterwort, eyebright, lousewort, the first to awaken to spring,
shy violet, the carpeting bedstraw, bog asphodel brightening the sedge
beds, perfumed thyme. There are orchids, maybe appearing once in a decade,
the rare Marsh St John’s wort where water swirls gently, the starry
saxifrage, sparkling above emerald moss. . .
And when the flowers aren’t in bloom there are the hundreds of
varieties of more modest plants, ground-hugging shrubs, ferns, mosses
and clubmosses, sedges, fungi and lichen that paint the rocks –
each by its presence describing the habitat which supports it. Ground
not affected by draining, burning, grazing or trampling can carry 12 or
more species on a square metre.
The gentle and bright flowers soften, counterpoint, the hard world of
granite. With nature’s immaculate timing, the first of these new
forms of plant life were just starting out on their evolutionary journey
at the very time the stone of Mourne was cooling to crystal deep below
the surface.
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