Finally the birds are singing and all the migrants are back. The woods, lanes and countryside are starting to come alive to different shades of colour with a variety of different plants. Here are a few plants you may see when you are out. I have always had an interest in plants, their medicinal properties and folk law. Much of the text has come from “Britain’s Wild Flowers“ A Treasury of Traditions, Superstitions Remedies and Literature by Rosamond Richardson. A wonderful book and worth a read.
Lesser celandine, Llygaid Ebrill, Ranunculus ficaria (Photo by Gethin Elias) The Lesser celandine is one of the first wildflowers to show after winter, flowering between March and May in woodland, hedgerows, stream banks and damp pastures. The glossy yellow flowers often seen with violets, which appear around the same time, shining out of tangled grass, or among old leaves under hedges. A sun loving member of the buttercup family, the Lesser celandine closes up in the cold or in rain, opening when the sunshines and providing pollen for various insects.
Heath Milkwort, Amlaethai`r waun, Polygala serpyllifolia (Photo by Gethin Elias) The milkwort family is widely distributed across Britain, milkwort favours chalk and limestone and is found on heathland (which is where I see my favourite plant each year), dunes and on grassland. The enchanting spikes of flowers have two oversize sepals of celestial blue (or sometimes white, purple or pink), which cradle the inner flower. The eight stamens fuse into a tube, with two tiny petals on each side and a larger third petal, delicately fringed, underneath. The beautiful milkwort is a perennial, flowering from May to September. The stem exudes a milky white sap when cut, hence the common name.
Greater stichwort, Serenllys mawr, Stellaria holostea (Photo by Gethin Elias) A plant to cure a stitch in the side: to the Anglo-Saxons and Celts such a pain was likely to be caused by elf shot, delivered by defending elves to whom stitchwort, also known as pixie flower, belongs. Anyone picking this flower would be lead astray by the pixies, who hide in it. The milk white, star shaped flowers on the straggly perennial have also been called the star of Bethlehem. The pure white petals, split halfway down into long lobes, grassy banks and the hedgerows, and glow along the woodland rides and roadsides where stitchwort flourishes in late spring.
Meadow sweet, Erwain, Filipendula ulmaria (Photo by Gethin Elias) ‘Queen of the meadow’ in many languages, meadowsweet has a long history as a medicinal plant. Salicylic acid isolated from meadowsweet was first synthesised in the 1890’s to make acetylsalicylic acid, later known as aspirin. A perennial, meadowsweet flowers between June and September on riverbanks, and wet meadows and along damp hedgerows, in ditches, on fen and marshland. It’s foam cream flowers contain no nectar but attracts insects to their abundant, sweet scented pollen, providing a food source for seventeen moths including the Emperor moth and the wonderfully named Hebrew character, the Lesser cream wave and glaucous shears moths.
Gethin Elias, Assistant Warden
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