This week’s theme is stamps with anything Irish – people, leprechauns, shamrocks, anything green, etc. To my surprise, I have not yet received any postcard from Ireland ;o So I dug deeper and deeper in my box and saw an empty parcel from Ireland. Then it came to me, I have a friend in Dublin who sent me parcels twice already. Anyways, I only got hold of this parcel with the following stamps:

 

 

The 75c (rate for international mail) features the navelwort flower and is part of the five new definitives (third phase)issued in 2006 featuring flowers from the “Dry Grassland and Rocky Heath” classification. Included in the five set are the Autumn gorse (12c), Common knapweed flower (25c), Viper’s bugloss (90c), and Foxglove (€1). Navelwort flowers are distinctive, hairless perennials found mostly on walls, cliffs, and stony banks. They are

often found in shady places, was so named as each round, fleshy leaf seems to have a little 'navel' in its centre. They are usually seen from June to September.

The 55c butterwort flower stamp is part of the fourth phase of stamps issued from the Irish Post’s sixth definitive series  of Wildflowers of Ireland. Butterwort flowers are sticky, hairy, and perennial, and although it is one of the native carnivorous plants, it is not a common sight in Ireland. They have the most beautiful violet funnel-shaped flower and purple streaks into its “throat”; they bloom through May and June.

More about navelwort and butterwort and other wildflowers of Ireland here at Wildflowers of Ireland.