About

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Wildflowers with their displays of brilliance and beauty are a vital part of our natural heritage. They occur in a breathtaking range of colours, tones, sizes and shapes and many have fascinating names. The Cleveland coast, from the entrance to one of Europe’s busiest ports to the highest sea cliffs near Boulby, supports a very diverse flora of many hundreds of different plant species including plants of national and local significance. The types of wildflowers vary along the coast depending on the main habitat type and extent of human influence. If you have ever wondered why one type of flower grows in one place and not another the answer lies in the history and ecology of the site.

Since 2015 the public have helped to capture the diversity of wildflowers and to show the different types of wildflower assemblages by taking photographs of any of the several hundred different wildflowers found along the coast. We ask people to select the best photograph of each different flower they take and to upload it onto our website identifying which part of the coast the plant came from using the simple web based form. Our experienced botanist then identifies the flower and gives it a name before it appears on the website.

The following wildflower pages of this website show the growing results of the programme. You can see the diversity of flowers along the coast from different coastal sections, find out more about certain flowers, and find resources and information to try your own wildflower walks.

We hope that you will feel inspired to help us with the project by uploading some of your flower photographs. Don’t worry if you think your photos are not good enough or that the flower has been already shown. Help us to develop new records of the flowering plants and to improve our understanding of the flora of the Cleveland Coast.