Our wildflower show reaches a climax

THE other morning I went for a walk along the bank of the Grand Canal in a rural part of Co Kildare. The amount and variety of wildflowers was striking.

In woodlands, hedgerows and meadows the most intense flowering tends to take place in the spring before tall plants shade out the wildflowers and conceal them from pollinating insects. But there’s less of this kind of competition beside water so everything tends to bloom a bit later and the show reaches a climax in high summer.

A stand of red valerian had only just come into flower. This familiar plant normally grows on walls, bridges or other masonry but is sometimes found in marshy places and beside rivers and canals. It’s not an Irish native plant but was introduced into gardens from the Mediterranean and then escaped. It has flowers that are very variable in colour, they’re normally red but can also be white, coral pink or mauve.