Understated glamour: Ireland’s flowers know how to work it

Plants such as elder have evolved showy white blooms that stand out across long distances, especially during early spring when competition is low, and the pollinators are few but hungry

Ireland’s spring landscape doesn’t explode into colour, it whispers into bloom. No technicolour fanfare, no floral fireworks. Instead, the countryside leans into a cooler kind of chic: hedgerows dusted with white blossom, roadsides trimmed in pale blooms, and trees cloaked in delicate ivory confetti. From cow parsley to blackthorn, hawthorn to wild cherry, it’s as if most plants in Ireland got the same memo: White is in.

Cow parsley