While carrying out plant monitoring, Gunta Evarte-Bundere, environmental expert at AS “Latvijas valsts meži” (LVM), has recorded specimens of the specially protected common ivy (Hedera helix) in Ventspils district that are unusually tall for Latvia – around 10 metres high.

Until 1998 there were no records of ivy flowering in Latvia. Flowering (generative) shoots of ivy look different: they have rounded, rhomboid leaves, and in particularly favourable conditions flowers develop on them. Ivy flowering was first observed in Latvia in 1998 in the vicinity of Rucava, and in 2019 a flowering ivy was observed in a planted area in Nīca, in the south-western part of Latvia.

“This year, while surveying the common ivy micro-reserve in northern Kurzeme, in Tārgale parish of Ventspils district, we found large, old and vigorous ivies around 10 m in height. What is more, five of them will flower this year, which indicates conditions that are favourable for the species. Ivy usually flowers in late August and in September, with greenish-yellow flowers in a head-like umbel. The fruit, meanwhile, is a black berry. From now on we need to keep watch so that the light intensity in the species’ habitat does not change, because this species cannot tolerate bright light – the ivy’s evergreen leaves then scorch and the plant may die,” explains LVM environmental expert Gunta Evarte-Bundere.

Common ivy is widespread in Europe; it favours an oceanic climate with mild winters, and it is therefore very rare in Latvia. The first records of ivy sites in Latvian territory are nevertheless known from as far back as the first half of the 19th century. In the past the species was planted in parks and cemeteries in Kurzeme. In the wild the species forms small populations in forest tracts around Rucava, Nīca, Liepene and Dundaga.

For a long time it was thought that Baltic ivy (Hedera helix var. baltica) – a small liana 4–5 m tall – grew in the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, but more recent scientific research does not recognise such a variety, and a single species occurs throughout the species’ range – common ivy (Hedera helix), which in favourable conditions can reach as much as 20 m in height in Europe.