1. Shetland names for plants … bog asphodel – limrek – makes yellow dye [Lerwick, Shetland, March 1994].

2. I lived for seven years in the Lake District. The fell farmers particularly feared bog asphodel in respect of their sheep, as it was a plant which ‘softened their bones’. I must say I came across very many dead sheep on my fell walks, tangled in thorns, etc., but I have been told the belief that they could have been weakened first by bog asphodel is sheer superstition [Worthing, West Sussex, September 1982].

Image: Easedale, Cumbria; July 2015.