Layers

I walked north from Newport Sands to see if I could find a rare coastal flower, Perennial (or Newport) centaury Centaurium scilloides and I thought I had. But when I got home I had to concede that what I had discovered was a much more common cliff plant, Rock Sea-spurrey Spergularia rupicola.

I felt a bit of an idiot so instead of a botanical treasure I am blipping the foot of the cliffs where the rock has been twisted and tilted by volcanic upheaval, then subjected to glacial pressure and release, and finally moulded by the suck and scour of waves and tides over many millenia. The pale striations are created by fine layers of volcanic ash that settled and became incorporated into the matrix, licked as smooth as salt-water taffy by the sea's greedy tongue.