Читать книгу Walking on the Gower. 30 walks exploring the AONB peninsula in South Wales онлайн

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The south Gower cliff slopes are covered with numerous cracks and fissures created where rainwater has dissolved the limestone. Thin soils build up in the cracks, supporting specialised plants that are tolerant of the constant salty spray, such as sea plantain, thrift, rock samphire and sea beet. The cliffs all along south Gower contain some of the best examples of this habitat anywhere in the UK.

Sea campion

Tree mallow is found on the cliffs between Mewslade and Fall Bay, and the cliffs between Thurba and Deborah’s Hole are a stronghold for yellow whitlowgrass, an alpine flower that blooms as early as the first week in March. It can also be found in narrow crevices in the upper cliffs between Pwlldu Head and Rhossili and on walls and rocks around Pennard Castle, but it occurs nowhere else in the UK.

Salt-tolerant plants grow on the lower part of the cliffs and include spring squill, golden samphire, rock sea-lavender, buck’s horn plantain, sea campion, scurvygrass and the only maritime fern, sea spleenwort. Juniper, one of the most striking of the late-glacial relict species on Gower, can be found in places protected from cliff-top fires as it cannot regenerate, unlike gorse which then tends to replace it.