Читать книгу Walking in the Yorkshire Dales: North and East. Howgills, Mallerstang, Swaledale, Wensleydale, Coverdale and Nidderdale онлайн

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PLANTS AND WILDLIFE

Despite human influences, the environment of the Dales supports a great diversity of habitats, whose individual characteristics are broadly governed by altitude and underlying geology.

Much of the upland is underlain by grits and other impervious rocks, and covered by wet blanket bog, where grass, sphagnum and purple moor grass pervade, with heather, bilberry and heath rush dominating where the ground is drier. Many of the better-drained upland heaths are actively managed as grouse moors, where the old growth of heather is periodically burnt off to encourage young shoots. The moors are perhaps at their most attractive during late summer, when the heather blazes in a rich swathe of purple. The limestone grasslands on the other hand are best in spring, when an amazing variety of small flowers, such as buttercup, vetch, rock rose, cranesbill and campion, speckle colour across the landscape. Small patches of woodland are also most appealing in springtime, when bluebells, ramsons and wood anemones abound.