After that wonderful short break away, it was back to earth with a bang; in fact, not just back to earth but in to the gutter with the pigs. Okay, not literally with the pigs but today’s wildflower is called Swine-cress, and I’ve found it growing very happily in the gutters and along the roadside, pavement and lane edges all around my coastal town.

As I’m fairly good at recognising the wildflowers I see these days, I was quite surprised to notice this little plant, whose name I didn’t know, growing so profusely. Swine-cress, which seems to have a variety of names: Coronopus squamatus and Lepidium coronopus, is a very small member of the Brassica family, an annual or biennial, with deeply cut leaves and tiny, almost unnoticeable white flowers. I haven’t yet discovered the reason for the ‘swine’ in its name so, if you know, please do tell me in the comments.