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Blaina is a valley-side colliery town in the middle Ebbw Fach, set on a narrow shelf between the river below and the steep wooded slopes rising to Mynydd Coedy-y-Bere above. The valley here narrows considerably and the sycamore woodland on the hillsides is thick, providing a strong May flow. Bramble is prolific on the old tip ground and forestry edges above the town; white clover covers the recreation grounds and the rough grass borders of the ex-colliery sites. The river corridor carries willows, elder and meadowsweet. Blaina's older stone terraces date from the mid-nineteenth century and many have enclosed rear gardens planted with fruit trees that add a useful late-spring forage supplement before the main sycamore and hawthorn flow begins.

Sycamore is the dominant May flow tree throughout the borough, flowering profusely on the valley sides from Blaina to Brynmawr. Hawthorn on the valley-rim hedgerows and blackthorn in the gorse-edge scrub supplements the April flow. Bramble is exceptionally dense on the extensive reclaimed colliery tip and forestry margins — a prolonged and reliable mid-summer crop — and rosebay willowherb adds colour and forage on every disturbed bank. White clover covers the playing fields and recreation grounds of the valley-floor settlements; the Clydach Gorge ash woods below Brynmawr add a limestone-flora element unusual in the valleys. Ling heather and bilberry on the plateau above 350 metres at Beaufort, Brynmawr and Tredegar give accessible late-summer heather forage rarely available this close to a valley settlement. A strong ivy flow on old stone terraces and chapel walls closes the year in October.