Cowslips

Look out for cowslips in dry, infertile grassland and roadside verges, occurring on lime rich soils. Its dark yellow flowers with an orange centre are held in drooping one-sided clusters borne on the top of a stout stalk with a basal rosette of crinkled leaves. They have a sweetly fragrant smell of apricots. Cowslips can cross with primroses to produce flowers called false oxlips. Flowers with pinkish flowers may be a cross with ornamentals. Well known in Irish folklore in herbal cures and one of the flowers gathered on May eve and hung in bunches over doors to protect from evil, cowslips are part of our native Irish biodiversity.