Species Spotlight Challenge - Day 25 - Sea Rocket

Sea Rocket (Cakile maritima) is a small, succulent plant in the Cabbage Family, which is common around the coasts of the British Isles, mainland Europe, North Africa and parts of western Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It is also found as an introduced plant in parts of North and South America. In Britain it is almost entirely restricted to a very narrow zone on the coast, where it often grows on sand at the edges of dunes facing the sea. It is an 'annual', meaning that it completes its whole life cycle within one growing season, and so needs to grow from seed each year. Its seed pods are in two parts, each containing seeds, but functioning in different ways - the end of the pod furthest from the plant easily becomes detached and can float great distances in the sea, while the other part stays attached to the plant and so sheds its seeds near where the parent plant was growing. These two contrasting strategies ensure that Sea Rocket can continue to grow in suitable places while at the same time spreading its seeds to other sites with the conditions that the plant needs to survive. 

Many insects are attracted to pollinate the flowers and the caterpillars of at least four moth species feed on the leaves, including the appropriately named Sand Dart and also Ni Moth (which I suspect any Monty Python fans among my readers might find amusing). I didn't see any strange knights when I took this photo at South Gare this afternoon though.

As well as having some fascinating ecological adaptations, Sea Rocket is a really pretty little plant, with its whitish-pink, cross-shaped flowers and fleshy bright green leaves. 

Map showing the distribution of Sea Rocket around the coasts of Britain and Ireland,
based on records compiled by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI)
[from the Online Atlas of the British and Irish Flora - 
https://www.brc.ac.uk/plantatlas/plant/cakile-maritima]