Of Cuckoos and Fritillaries

One effect of the wet winter seems to have been a particularly good show of Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis). This member of the mustard family is common on damp grassland, including road verges, and is the food plant of the Orange-tip butterfly (Antocharis cardamines).

It takes its common name from the fact that it often flowers around the time the first cuckoo is heard, but shares the name with several other, unrelated, plants that flower around the same time. Scientific names were invented to avoid this kind of confusion.

Another, sadly much less common, plant of damp grassland is the Snake’s-head fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris). Although widely sold as a garden bulb, in the wild it is confined to a handful of wet meadows from Wiltshire and Oxfordshire to Suffolk. 

One of the classic localities is in the meadows of Magdalen College, Oxford, where it flowers in its thousands. Here it looks wonderful with a show of cowslips.

Photos: Steve and Karin Alton. Orange tip: Wikipedia