Spring – the season of new growth, abundant change ..

If you go down to the woods today you’re in for a great surprise .. the darkened carpet of winter is spring cleaning itself giving us drifts of white snowdrops, green patches with yellow nodules of lesser celandine, crocus escapees – yellow-yolked, Han purple, cream or white ones ...

... blends of pinkish-purple green of the spreading white, pink or yellow wood anemones, green spikes of wild daffodils providing golden yellow trumpets, and the smell of ramsons – wild garlic – the green pointed basal leaves with the white frothy flowers, while the bluebell is waiting to raise its glorious head.

Ancient woodland at Brading, Isle of Wight showing bluebells (blue flowers, Hyacinthoides non-scripta), ramsons (white flowers, Allium ursinum) and hazel trees, (Corylus avellana).

English Wood Anemones

Han purple so named .. is a type of artificial barium copper silicate pigment found in China during the golden age of the Han Dynasty between 500BC and AD220, when it was used in the decoration of the Terracotta Army; before this discovery azurite had been the only natural blue pigment.

Ramsons – Allium Ursinum – the Latin name is due to the brown bear’s taste for the bulbs, which it delights in digging up. Boars and humans also enjoy Ramsons – remnants have been found in Mesolithic Danish and Neolithic Swiss settlements ... where they were probably used as fodder. Cows that have fed on Ramsons give milk that tastes slightly of garlic, and butter made from this milk used to be very popular in 19th century Switzerland.

Crocus – Han Purple The graduated colours of crocus cultivars can appear as Han purple in direct sunlight.

Ramsons' flowers

Ramsons’ leaves are edible – being used in salads, as a vegetable, in soups or as an ingredient for pesto in lieu of basil. The stems are preserved by salting and eaten as a salad in Russia, while apparently the bulbs and flowers are also very tasty – logical as the plant is a wild relative of the chive.

These woodland flowers bloom early to benefit from the early sunshine, as during April to May the tree canopy closes, letting little or no sunlight through the burgeoning leaf growth to the earth below.

All life responds to the changing rhythm of the seasons. As the earth’s orbit brings the Northern Hemisphere closer to the sun again plant growth conditions of warmer and longer days become more favourable.

Some plants as those above steal a march by flowering before winter is full spent. By adapting to the colder conditions of early spring they avoid the fierce competition for space, light and insect pollinators that increases as the year progresses.

Early spring plants must exploit their winter store of food to produce fresh growth. It has been established that plants detect changes in day length, and this triggers various phases of their life cycle – budding, flowering, fruiting and leaf-fall. Temperature changes also can modify the cycle in different plants.

Animals too, are profoundly influenced by the changing seasons – protective structures or behaviour may be needed to survive the cold, but winter adaptations such as a thicker coat will soon need to be shed or adjusting to their symbiotic situations within the plant kingdom. Animals, including insects, also detect changes in day length, and their bodies adjust to the yearly cycle.

Animal Composite from Wikipedia

This seasonal rhythmic change brings about a state of reproductive readiness – some earlier than others; many species ‘take two’ ... producing two broods during the warmer days – Nature’s gamble .. ensuring almost always some success.

The Lesser Celandine – sometimes called 'Spring’s Messenger' – was a favourite of William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) inspiring him to write three poems including the following from his "Ode to the Celandine":

I have seen thee, high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet
T’was a face I did not know.

Upon his death it was proposed that a celandine be carved on his memorial plaque, but unfortunately the Greater Celandine was mistakenly used!

The Lesser Celandine

Nature is maintenance free ... natural life adapts to seasonal change, as it has done throughout earth’s history ... nature has created the most efficient natural mechanism for carbon sequestration – let the plants grow!

Over eons of history life has altered, changed and adapted and continues to do so, perhaps with one exception, ... as Wordsworth notes in the last verse of his "Lines Written in Early Spring" .. a philosophical quote of a man before his time?

Portrait of William Wordsworth by Benjamin Robert Haydon oil on canvas, 1842

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature's holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?


Dear Mr Postman – we watched some ‘Ski Sunday’, which used to be a favourite of my mother’s, then I left her watching “Shanghai Knights” with Jackie Chan ... just something different to do – but having had walls and ceiling covered with posters and postcards, she prefers plain walls for now.

On Monday she was wide awake and really cheerful – sending me off to enjoy myself at a funeral and come back and tell her all about it and the people I met – she hasn’t been awake sufficiently since?! It was an extremely informative service at a beautiful little church with a lot of history, Oliver had been a man ahead of the times – and so I did enjoy myself ... with lots to tell you too!

Hilary Melton-Butcher
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