You would need to be shown this plant by someone who has seen it before. There are no flowers nor are any spores or sporangia visible. It looks rather like a seedling of Ameria maritima (Thrift). The local experts know that you can reveal the bulbs and replant without harming the plant so the second photograph shows the structure of the plant. This is extremely local on Guernsey but as soon as we got down on hands and knees to look for it, there appeared to be well over 30 plants in one small patch.

Apart from some sites on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall the only other places where this plant can be found in the British Isles is on the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Alderney.

Fort Homme Guernsey 16th April 2005

Added on 17th April 2005, updated 2nd February 2010, updated 13th April 2010