15 March 2023

Winter Heliotrope

Look out for one of the baddies – winter heliotrope with distinctive kidney shaped leaves, which are downy on the underside. It grows in shady places along roadsides where ground has been disturbed or existing vegetation sprayed. It creeps along by rhizomes or underground stems carpeting large areas of ground with its dense canopy of leaves suppressing other vegetation. Winter heliotrope, a native plant in the Mediterranean, was introduced to Ireland in the early nineteenth century and is now an invasive alien species, having escaped from gardens. As with all invasive alien species, the problem is that winter heliotrope crowds out our native Irish biodiversity.