Tight cushions of narrow grey-green leaves on a sea cliff, each with a papery pink pompom on a single bare stalk
Sea thrift — Armeria maritima, the sea pink.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Sea thrift
Flowers April to July
Armeria maritima — Plumbaginaceae
Thrift, or sea pink, is the cushion plant of British coasts: tight hummocks of narrow grey-green leaves on clifftops, shingle and saltmarsh, studded in spring with papery pink pompoms on bare stalks. It tolerates salt spray and heavy metals, so it also grows on old lead and copper mine spoil far inland. Most famously, it was the design on the reverse of the twelve-sided brass threepenny bit from 1937 to 1952.
How to spot them
- ▸Dense cushions or hummocks of narrow, grass-like, fleshy grey-green leaves
- ▸A rounded head of small papery pink flowers on a single leafless, downy stalk, 5–30 cm tall
- ▸A papery brown sheath below the flower head, and dry papery bracts within it
- ▸Sea cliffs, clifftop turf, shingle, sand dunes and the upper saltmarsh, April to July
- ▸Also on mountain ledges and on metal-rich mine spoil well inland
How to know it
Its flower appeared on the reverse of the twelve-sided brass threepenny bit from 1937 until 1952
Sea thrift — designed by Frances Madge Kitchener, and apt for a coin issued in hard times.
Replaced on that coin by a crowned portcullis when Elizabeth II came to the throne
Sea thrift — the brass threepence.
A salt- and metal-tolerant cushion plant found on clifftops and also on old lead and copper mine spoil inland
Sea thrift — a classic metallophyte.
County flower of the Isles of Scilly, Pembrokeshire and Bute; also called sea pink and cliff clover
Sea thrift.
A member of the sea-lavender family, not a pink or a clover, despite two of its names
Sea thrift — Armeria maritima, family Plumbaginaceae.
Excess salt is pushed out through glands on its leaves, which is how it survives the spray zone
Sea thrift.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Plumbaginaceae, with the sea lavenders — not a pink (Caryophyllaceae) and not a clover
- •The Wildlife Trusts record it as the flower on one side of the pre-decimal three pence coin
- •The twelve-sided brass threepence carried the thrift design from 1937 to 1952, by Frances Madge Kitchener; Elizabeth II's threepence showed a crowned portcullis instead
- •County flower of the Isles of Scilly, of Pembrokeshire and of Bute in Plantlife's 2002 County Flowers survey
- •A metallophyte: it grows on lead, copper and zinc spoil heaps that exclude most other plants
- •Salt is excreted through leaf glands, and the fleshy leaves reduce water loss in the drying spray
- •Other names include sea pink, cliff clover, ladies' cushion and Our Lady's pillow
- •Also found on mountain rock ledges and, in the Arctic, far from any coast
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Thrift