This blog post was commissioned by Quba Sails.
Thrift (Armeria maritima) is a common sight on cliff tops, salt marshes and mountainsides throughout the British Isles. A small, compact plant, it forms clumps of narrow, single-veined leaves above a visible woody rootstock, producing a cushion-like shape. Thrift is a perennial, in bloom in Northern Europe from April to September; the tiny flowers are borne in clusters above each ‘cushion’ by a single greyish-green flower spike, about 6-10 inches tall.
Thrift flowers smell of honey, and appear in shades of soft pink, varying from near-white to a deep cerise. Look a little closer and you will see that each individual flower has five petals, with a small woolly mass of white hairs at the centre, as well as five pinkish stamen bearing yellow anthers with cream-coloured pollen. The papery bracts are often coloured a dark brownish red, and extend downward from the flower for about an inch along the stem. Thrift plants tend to grow close together, and the massed spread of subtly varying pink blooms is a beautiful sight – particularly when interwoven with a carpet of spring Bluebells.
Curiously, Armeria maritima is able to tolerate levels of heavy metals that would be toxic to other plants. In particular it has great copper tolerance, though it is also able to sequester cadmium, mercury, zinc, nickel, iron and manganese. This ability enables Thrift to grow in heavily contaminated soils where other plants might struggle to survive, such as salt marshes, serpentine rocks, very acidic soils, heavy-metal mine tailings and waste heaps near lead and zinc mines. The heavy metals enter the plant by the roots and can be found bound to proteins in the roots and leaves (heavy metals can also appear on the surface of the leaves as a precipitate). Thrift plants can therefore be used as ‘phytoremediators’ – that is, they can be planted in contaminated land to help clean the soil.
Thrift plants play an important role in the ecosystem; not only do they help to maintain soil health, but they also support a host of insect life. For example, Armeria maritima is the main food plant for the Thrift Clearwing (Synansphecia muscaeformis), a small moth found throughout the British Isles wherever Thrift grows. The Thrift Clearwing lays its eggs in the roots and crowns of the plants, where the hatched caterpillars can then feed in relative safety, and the adult moths fly in June and July.
The quiet beauty and seeming stoicism of this small plant are rightly admired; Thrift was selected as the county flower of both Bute and Pembrokeshire, and in 2002 a plant conservation charity, Plantlife, chose it as the county flower of the Isles of Scilly. An image of Thrift was also used on a British coin, the threepenny bit, between 1937 and 1953 – no doubt its name was considered a particularly apposite reminder during a period of austerity. It’s thought that the name 'Thrift' originated as a reference to the leaves of the plant, which are packed together tightly to conserve water, but Thrift is known by many names, including Sea Pink, Rock Rose, Our Lady’s Cushion and Clustog Fair (‘Mary’s Pillow’ in Welsh). This is no surprise, given its successful spread across the cliff tops and countryside of the United Kingdom, but the most evocative name of all is perhaps also the oldest; in Gaelic, Thrift is simply Tonna Chladaich, or 'Beach Wave'.
Sources:
Collins Gem Guide to the Seashore by Rod and Ken Preston-Mafham (HarperCollins 1999)
ukmoths.org.uk
wildflowerfinder.org.uk/Flowers
www.arkive.org
en.wikipedia.org
www.plantlife.org.uk
