A-Z Challenge 2016 Wild Flowers 'B'

My theme this year is wild flowers. Most of us will be aware of the flowers that grow in our gardens but what surprises me is how few of the wild flowers that I know.

I pass them every day but rarely look at them. Well this year will be different - even if many of them may fall under the letter 'X' for unknown.

'B' - Blackthorn, Buttercup, Bluebell

In April each year there is a tree or bush whose flowers tell us that spring has arrived.

Blackthorn in flower

The blackthorn flowers appear before the leaves and are hermaphrodites, providing early nectar for the birds and insects that fertilise them.

Blackthorn (Latin name: prunus spinosa) was long associated with witchcraft. Witches wands and staffs were said to be made of blackthorn wood.

Later in the year you see people collecting their fruit.

Blackthorn fruit - sloes

Many know the blackthorn by the name of its fruit which can be used for preserves and commonly for flavouring gin.

     "The blackthorn hung with clinging sloes
       Blue-veiled in weather becoming cold,"

A field of yellow is one of the most beautiful sights in the English countryside.

A field of yellow meadow buttercups

How many of you as children had a buttercup held under your chin and being told the yellow reflection it showed meant that you liked butter.

Meadow buttercups

On May Day, the Irish used to run buttercups on the udders of their cows - supposedly to encourage milk production. It's also said that buttercups give a brighter yellow butter.

Some folklore believed yellow to be an evil colour and hence gives the plant an evil side. Indeed the plant is poisonous and contains protoanemonin which is volatile and can be given off when handling the plant causing possible eye and nasal irritation.Ingestion produces inflammation of the mouth and abdominal pain.

Another type of buttercup is one that invades many garden.

Creeping buttercup

It spreads, as the name implies,  by  sending out long runners on the ground. To gardeners it just a weed.

Although familiar with another spring flower for a long time, it was only last year that I discovered some in a local wood.

Bluebell patch

I shall have to pay more attention to them this year to determine whether they are the English or the invasive Spanish variety.

Its bulbs and stems were once used to make a form of glue for book binding and for fixing arrow flights

By accident I discovered a delightful poem by Anne Bronte. I hope you have the time to listen to it.

Attributions:

• From Wilderness - Edmund Blundell (1896 - 1974)
• Video: A bluebell - Anne Bronte 
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