14 Sunday Feb 2021
As I’m sure most of you know, in Victorian Britain flowers had special meanings, and many people could understand the language of flowers, could even send coded messages by choosing carefully the flowers they included in a floral gift to a friend or potential lover.
Crocuses, apparently, symbolised youth and cheerfulness. Sadly, my youth is long gone but seeing these beauties on a recent walk certainly made me feel cheery.
09 Sunday Feb 2020
Posted in nature, spring, wildflowers
Tags
Alexanders, British wildflowers, Cherry plum blossom, crocus, Dog's mercury, Lesser Celandine, snowdrop, Spring blossom
This week’s wanderings produced sightings of two new wildflowers for the year, Dog’s mercury (Mercurialis perennis), thriving under a hedgerow, and Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum), an exceedingly common plant along the local coastal path.
I’d seen Crocuses already but this swathe, growing on a small green in the village of Michaelston-le-Pit, was a lilac delight.
Not a wildflower, but the local Cherry plum trees have burst into bloom this week. They say Spring to me!
Snowdrops are out en masse now, and more and more bursts of bright yellow Lesser celandines can be found, sprinkled along paths and in the local woodlands. So cheery!
24 Saturday Feb 2018
Posted in flowers, insects, nature, spring, wildflowers
Following on from yesterday’s gorgeous crocuses for Floral Friday, here’s a little something I found bumbling about in those flowers …
23 Friday Feb 2018
Posted in flowers, nature, plants, spring, wildflowers
Along these blushing borders bright with dew,
And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers,
Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace –
Throws out the snowdrop and the crocus first
~ James Thomson, ‘Spring’, The Seasons
18 Saturday Feb 2017
Posted in flowers, nature, seasons, spring, wildflowers
I went for a lovely long walk around parts of Cardiff Bay yesterday and it was sunny and warm, so warm that I had to strip off my scarf and the thin jumper I was wearing over my t-shirt and under my fleece. Spring was definitely in the air and, on my return walk home, I discovered I wasn’t the only one to be feeling the temperature change. These crocuses were putting on a glorious display in the churchyard of St Augustine’s and in the small grassy area just down the hill from the church. Beautiful!
23 Monday Jan 2017
Tags
crocus, Galanthus nivalis, Lesser Celandine, primrose, Primula vulgaris, snowdrop, spring flowers in January
It’s not even the end of January and the spring flowers are starting to open. I saw these Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), Crocuses (Crocus sp.), Lesser celandines (Ficaria verna) and Primroses (Primula vulgaris) yesterday during a walk through my local park and cemetery. They’re wonderful to see but I have a feeling winter hasn’t quite finished with us yet.
26 Tuesday Jan 2016
Posted in flowers, nature, nature photography, spring, wildflowers
Tags
‘Soon as the frost will get out of my bed,
From this cold dungeon to free me,
I will peer up with my little bright head;
And all will be joyful to see me.
Then from my heart will young petals diverge,
As rays of the sun from their focus;
I from the darkness of earth shall emerge
A happy and beautiful Crocus!’
From the poem ‘The Crocus’s Soliloquy’ by Miss H. F. Gould in The Poetry of Flowers and Flower of Poetry, ed. Frances Sargent Locke Osgood, J. B. Lippincott & Co, Philadelphia, 1863.
