Falklands Conservation

The delicate Pale Maiden (Olysnium filifolium) is to be adopted as the national flower of the Falklands. This is the choice of popular opinion following recent public consultation in the Islands.

The Pale Maiden is a rhizomatus perennial which lies dormant in winter and then provides a flush of colour throughout the spring and early summer. The leaves are stiffly erect, rush-like and usually about 20cm tall. The two to eight flowers open in succession, first into pendant bells and then later into flatter open cups of pure white, yellow at the base and with purple veins. Pale maidens grow in both dwarf shrub heath and whitegrass heath from the coast up into the hills. It is comparatively common, though not as abundant as formerly when the famous botanist J D Hooker said of the plant 'One of the most abundant and elegant plants in the Falkland Islands, where the grass plains are, in the spring month of November, almost whitened by the profusion of its pendulous, snowly bells'.

Distribution Map for Pale Maiden
Taken from "The Vascular Flora of the Falkland Islands: An Annotated Checklist and Atlas" by David A Broughton/James H McAdam

Pale Maiden
Photo: Alan Henry

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