Sea Holly

Name: Sea Holly

Scientific name: Eryngium maritimum

Category: Flowers

Nature Stars: 70

What are nature stars?

About: Found on coastlines and dunes (and even in gardens as a cultivated variety). Flowers between July and August.

How to identify: Looks a bit like a thistle with silvery blue leaves and many prickly spikes on the edges. The flowers are a deep purple-blue when fresh.

Where: Only grows around the coastline of the UK and Ireland

Fantastic fact: In Elizabethan times, the flowers were thought to encourage love.

Photograph credit: Neil Wyatt