Tag Archives: Snake’s head fritillary

Station blooms

05 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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Though Penarth is a wonderfully historic Victorian seaside town, with lovely parks, an iconic pier and grand buildings, its station is nothing to write home about. The original stone-built station buildings were demolished in the 1980s and replaced with a functional but ugly brick structure. So, it’s not one of those picturesque stations with hanging baskets full of summer flowers but it does have one redeeming feature. The scruffy and uncared-for dirt bank alongside the platform is currently home to a delightful display of Spring blooms. So, while the other morning commuters spend their waiting time scrolling through the latest social media happenings on their smartphones, completely oblivious to their surroundings, I enjoy the flowers. I hope you do too!

Foreign-looking fritillaries

19 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by in nature, wildflowers

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And then I came to a field where the springing grass
Was dulled by the hanging cups of fritillaries,
Sullen and foreign-looking, the snaky flower,
Scarfed in dull purple, like Egyptian girls
~ from Vita Sackville West, The Land, 1926

Vita was writing about the Snake’s head fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris), also known by a multitude of other common names, including chequered daffodil, chess flower, frog-cup, guinea-hen flower, Lazarus bell, chequered lily, drooping tulip, and leper lily (because its shape resembles the bell once carried by lepers).

fritillary (5)

Perhaps that association with lepers is why the fritillary is considered by some to be a little sinister. Sackville West certainly wrote negatively of it in The Land and, according to the Poison Garden website, she declared the fritillary to be ‘a sinister little flower, in the mournful colour of decay’. I certainly can’t agree with Vita’s negative opinion of this most unusual of flowers, as I find the combination of unusual chequered pattern, delicate elegance and soft magenta colouring simply stunning.