• Question: we went to stanage edge on saturday it was very windy and we only saw heather. how does it grow when it is so windy?

    Asked by wookiee to Amelia, Clem, Izzy, Sarah on 17 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Amelia Frizell-Armitage

      Amelia Frizell-Armitage answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Brilliant question!

      Heather is very well adapted to live in places with difficult weather conditions like lots of wind. They do this by growing very close to the ground which means they can’t get blown over. They also have small flowers, quite thick, woody, stems which are difficult to break and stop the plant from becoming damaged, is really good at getting nutrients from the soil even when there is not much available, and strong roots that keep them stuck well in the soil. Somewhere like Stanage edge might have other species growing close to the ground like short grasses and mosses?

      It is more difficult to grow in places like this where conditions are windy because you need all the special adaptations. However, an advantage of heather being able to grow in places like stanage edge is that not many other species of plant are able to grow there. This means that it doesn’t have so many other species to compete with so it can have all the soil nutrients and water to itself, and is more likely to get pollinated by insects.

    • Photo: Isabel Webb

      Isabel Webb answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Heather is a shrub, and grows quite small and close to the ground. This limits the amount of heather exposed to the wind and so there is less force on it than on a big tree. Heather plants have woody stems, so they have a lot of strength in their stem to stay up – and they also grow closely packed and so help to protect eachother from lots of the force of the wind.

      Heather also uses the wind to its advantage. Heather uses the wind to spread its pollen and spread its seeds. Spreading pollen far makes sure that there is lots of diversity between the two plant parents, and spreading the seeds helps the heather to spread out within the environment, increasing chances of survival (if one area gets destroyed, there will still be heather elsewhere).

    • Photo: Sarah Harvey

      Sarah Harvey answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Aha scientist in the making here if you’re noticing stuff around you and wondering why it happens, good question!

      I’m not an expert on this but I think that the reason heather does so well is because it can grow on many different soil types and is good at getting nutrients even in really bad soil – for example really rocky or sandy with hardly any nutrients. This means that if all of the good compost gets blown away they can still survive! Also heather plants are short and dense, which helps them withstand the wind compared to something which grows long and thin like a sunflower or something (extreme example!).

      One other reason might be that heather has woody stems, which provide it with a bit more support and allow it to withstand the wind without snapping.

    • Photo: Clemence Bonnot

      Clemence Bonnot answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Plant that grow in windy places are generally growing as bush, very small and dense. Their root are also often dense and to anchor them better to the ground. Plant that have successfully adapted to this kind of environment do quiet well there because they do not have many competitors for food and sun.

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