Plant species along the coast of Bretagne

During a short holiday in July 2002 we went to Bretagne to look for plants, mainly in the coastal area. We started at Quiberon and surroundings and went northwest during the following days. Afterwards I found out we had only recorded some of the more warm-loving plants like Andryala and Scolymus here. So I was wondering if maybe precisely on this location there is a sharp boundary between the warm south and the cooler north part of Bretagne.

Useful identification key

Georges Claustres and Cécile Lemoine: Connaître et reconnaître la flore et la vegetation des côtes Manche-Atlantique, Ouest de France (Rennes 1980).

Report of this BotanicalJourney

In the surroundings of Quiberon you can find large and (for plants) exciting dunes. The vegetation is short and variegated. The chalky influences from the sea (shells) and the more acid influences from inland rocks (with heather) made it a good place to look for plants. Orchids love the lower and a bit damp dunes. I found a nice patch with Spiranthes aestivalis (see picture) there.

More to the west you can find another landscape that is very typical for Bretagne. Near Cap Coz there are a lot of small patches of grassland surrounded by hedgerows. Here you can find a lot of different plants, like Vicia bithynica. It is also the only place ever where I got (a lot of!) ticks going from the toilet to my tent on a camp site...

Far more to the west, and mainly inland, you can find large forests with mostly a boring vegetation on somewhat acid soil. On places where the wind gets hold on the landscape, you find a lot of heather. In moist surroundings, you can get a vegetation of mainly ferns. Narthecium ossifragum and Pedicularis sylvatica can be found there. In more open area's you even can find Juncus capitatus and Cicendia filiformis.

Somewhat westwards of Crozon there is a nice beach and a marsh with lots of Cladium mariscus. You can make nice walks through the countryside here. The combination of freshwater streams and stony walls together with the mild climate (the winters are not very cold in this part of Bretagne), gives a lot of different plants a chance to grow. Many cultivated plant species are naturalized here; for example Oxalis articulata, Ficus carica and Geranium endresii.

We also made a nice walk to a small peninsula with a small fortification called Fort de l'Aber, and recorded some interesting plant like Asplenium marinum, Lotus subbiflorus (see picture) and Jasione crispa.