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Ebbw Vale (Glynebwy) is the administrative centre of Blaenau Gwent, occupying the floor and lower slopes of the Ebbw Faw valley where the river rises on the Mynydd Llangynidr plateau above the town. The former steelworks site has been transformed into a retail and civic quarter, and the reclaimed plateau edges above Cefn Golau carry gorse scrub, bilberry and heather that give apiaries on the valley rim access to a distinctively upland late-summer flow. Hawthorn and blackthorn are dense in the valley-side hedgerows between the housing estates and the open moorland above; sycamore is the dominant valley-floor tree and provides a consistent early May flow through the town centre streets.

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.