Geology and Fauna
The Burren has an austerity of almost mythical dimensions, suggesting ancient privations. The pavementing that stretches before you is a floor of grey rock, split by long parallel grooves known as grykes. Throughout the Burren, rainwater seeps through the highly porous rock and gouges away at the many underground potholes, caves and tunnels. The only visible river is the Caher at Fanore, but there are a multitude of underground waterways, and there are lakes , known as turloughs, that are peculiar to this landscape; they appear only after heavy rainfall, when the underground systems fill up, and vanish once again after a few dry days. The panorama is bleak, but close up, wild flowers burst from the grooves in specks and splashes of brilliant colour. A botanist's delight and enigma, the Burren supports an astounding variety of flora , with Arctic, Alpine and Mediterranean plants growing alongside each other. The best time to see the flowers is late spring, when the strong blue, five-petalled spring gentians flourish. Here, too, are mountain avens, various saxifrages and maidenhair fern. Later in summer, the magenta bloody cranesbill and a fantastic variety of orchids (considered rare elsewhere) bloom: bee orchids, fly orchids and the lesser butterfly. More common flowers look stunning by sheer force of quantity: bright yellow birdsfoot trefoil and hoary rockrose, and milkwort. Obviously flowers must not be picked. Nobody knows exactly how these plants came to be here, nor why they remain. It has been suggested that some of the Mediterranean flowers have been here since Ireland had a far hotter climate, but how they survived is a source of speculation: it may be the peculiar conditions of moist warm air coming in from the sea, the Gulf Stream ensuring a mild, frostless climate, and very effective drainage through the porous limestone. It's also thought that the bare rock absorbs heat all summer and stores it, so that the Burren land is appreciably warmer in wintertime than areas of a different geology. There's more on the Burren's geology in the Burren Display Centre in Kilfenora and at the Whitehorn Visitor Centre, Ballyvaughan.
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