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Portrait of Mountain avens

Nature · Wildflowers & flowers

Mountain avens

Native · flowers May–Jul · limestone and basic rock in the mountains and north-west coasts

Dryas octopetala — Rosaceae

Mountain avens is a mat-forming, evergreen dwarf shrub of base-rich rock in the mountains and along the far north-west coast, with white, eight-petalled, yellow-centred flowers and crinkled, oak-like leaves that are woolly white beneath. Its pollen is the marker of the Ice Age's cold snaps: the Younger Dryas, the last cold spell before our warm climate, is named after it. Britain's finest heaths of it, on Durness limestone in Sutherland, are rivalled only by the Burren in Ireland.

How to spot them

  • ▸White flowers about 4 cm across with usually eight (seven to ten) petals around a boss of golden stamens
  • ▸Small, dark green, oval, scalloped leaves like tiny oak leaves, wrinkled above and white-felted beneath
  • ▸A flat, creeping, woody mat only a few centimetres high
  • ▸Feathery, twisted, silvery seed heads in late summer, like miniature clematis 'old man's beard'
  • ▸Look-alike: wood avens and water avens (Geum), which are taller, upright woodland plants with yellow or nodding flowers; mountain avens is a mat of the high or northern limestone. The flowers might suggest a wood anemone, but the leaves and creeping woody habit differ

How to know it

Mat of small oak-like leaves, white and felted beneath, carrying white flowers with eight petals on a limestone crag in the Highlands

Mountain avens, Dryas octopetala.

The Younger Dryas, a sudden cold snap about 12,900 to 11,700 years ago, takes its name from the pollen of this arctic-alpine dwarf shrub

Mountain avens — Dryas octopetala pollen marks cold phases in lake muds.

Linnaeus named the genus after the dryads, nymphs of the oak, because of the shape of its leaves; the specific name means 'eight-petalled'

Dryas octopetala — mountain avens.

Britain's finest heaths of this plant grow on Durness limestone and wind-blown shell-sand in the far north-west of Scotland, rivalled only by those of the Burren

Mountain avens — NatureScot.

The national flower of Iceland, where it is called holtasóley

Mountain avens.

After the flowers fade, it bears feathery, twisted, silvery seed heads that catch the wind and can carry the seeds far

Mountain avens.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Native evergreen dwarf shrub of Rosaceae, the rose family, the same family as the wood avens (Geum) and the strawberry
  • •Flowers May to July; usually eight petals (octo-petala = eight-petalled)
  • •Grows on base-rich rocks in the mountains of Scotland, Eryri (Snowdonia), the Lake District, the northern Pennines, and, at almost sea level, on the Durness limestone coast in Sutherland
  • •Britain contains the best Dryas heaths, and the only ones that rival those of the Burren in County Clare (NatureScot)
  • •The Younger Dryas, 12.9 to 11.7 thousand years ago, and the older Dryas periods, are named after Dryas octopetala, whose leaves and pollen mark cold phases
  • •Linnaeus named the genus after the dryads, oak nymphs, since the leaves look like oak leaves (Plantlife)
  • •The flowers are reported to track the sun across the sky, warming their centres and helping pollination
  • •Plantlife's conservation work in Eryri manages grazing carefully around its mountain avens sites; the plant is a marker of arctic-alpine limestone flora

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