Though Richard Mabey writes in Flora Britannica that Thrift, which may have acquired its common name ‘from its tight and economic tufts’, is found in ‘almost every kind of seashore location’, I don’t see it in my area of south Wales so it was lovely to see this beautiful plant just coming in to bloom on Portland.

Though Thrift’s scientific name Armeria maritima rolls nicely off the tongue, I much prefer the vernacular names listed and explained by Mabey: Sea-pink (a lovely name and easily understandable from this plant’s lovely blooms, which vary from dark pink through to white), Cliff clover (cliff I get, but this is nothing like a clover in appearance), Ladies’ cushions (from their padded cushion-like form); and Heugh daisy (a name used only in specific locations in Scotland and northern England, where heugh means cliff or ravine).