<a href=”http://Image by Jasmin777 from Pixabay

I guess you’ll recognise this flower straight away – during late April and May, cow parsley seems to erupt out of nowhere as if nature’s said to hell with the diet and sprayed frothy, whipped cream everywhere. I’m so pleased attitudes towards this underappreciated plant have changed from something local councils strimmed out of existence in the 1970s and 80s, to being left to joyously brighten verges and fields – not to mention being motorway service stations for huge numbers of insects.

So which name do you use? Cow parsley seems to be the usual one, however, I prefer Queen Anne’s lace as it aptly describes the beautifully intricate delicacy of the flowerheads. Each ‘flower’ isn’t really one flower, but hundreds of tiny ones in a cluster resembling an umbrella – it belongs to a group of plants which scientists call umbellifers, coming from the Latin umbella meaning a sunshade or parasol.

Continue reading “Nature’s motorway service area: why that frothy white flower deserves far more respect” →