Thrift
size:
plant: 5 to 50 centimeters
flower: 0.6 to 0.8 centimeter
color:
flower: pink
blossoms:
May through September
reproduction:
seed, branched root stock
lifespan:
perennial
- Dut: Engels Gras
- Lat: Armeria maritima
- Eng: Thrift; Sea Pink
- Fren: Gazon d'Olympe
- Ger: Strand-Grasnelke
- Dan: Engelskgræs
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- Thrift, foto fitis, sytske dijksen
Thrift
With its knob of pink flowers erecting from the top of a green stem, thrift looks nothing like the abundant purple flower head of the sea lavender. Nevertheless, both species fall under the leadwort family. Thrift, also called sea pink, flowers for a long period of time, from May till late summer. When it's not flowering, you hardly take note of the plant, since its thin leaves form a flat rosette on the ground. It is a salt-tolerant plant found in salt marshes together with sea lavender. However it is not limited to salty areas. You also find it on the typical grass walls (tuinwallen) on Texel. Cultivated forms of thrift are popular garden plants and as dried flowers.
- Distribution and habitat
- Thrift on 'Garden wall'., foto fitis, sytske dijksen
Thrift grows high up on the marsh, in the zone which only floods during spring tide. This plant is often found together with creeping fescue. It also grows on sea dikes, in the dunes and along salted roads. On Texel, thrift even grows on the typical grass walls, the 'tuinwallen'. Thrift is common on all of the Wadden Islands (incuding Rottum and Griend) but is quite rare along the Wadden Sea coast, the delta region and the Hondsbossche Seawall. Inland it is sometimes found along the IJsselmeer shores, the river Geul and in the verges along roads that are salted in the winter. Thrift is declining rapidly and therefore has been placed on the Red List for protected plants.
See also
Info
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