In the past the inaccessability of the Lasithi district of Crete has made a thorough botanical survey difficult. Its flora is still imperfectly known, but as far as can be ascertained at present, it is definitely not as rich in rare plants as several other Cretan districts. Even so, it contains well over a dozen of the island's most spectacular endemics.

The Lasithi plain itself is too well cultivated to allow many plants to grow, but the annual Crepis rubra, with flowers like clear pink Dandelions, is a weed on many of the banks. During late summer the grey spiny hummocks of Cichorium spinosum are none too lavishly dotted with their soft sky-blue flowers of typical Chicory shape, and in the walls at the western end of the plain Aristolochia sempervirens is firmly established. The leaves are shaped like arrow-heads, of a dark and glossy green, and among the long twining stems hang down the flowers. Their bent tubular shape is weirdly fantastic and their colour equally so, being dark brownish maroon with a startling golden blotch on the lip.