1. Plant label at the Secret Garden, Crystal Palace, London Borough of Croydon, September 2018.

2. I spent part of my childhood in the thirties in the north Chilterns where the Anemone pulsatilla (pasque flower) grew above the village of Barton-le-clay. I was always told that this plant only grows ‘where Danish blood was spilt’. Indeed one can understand how this idea developed as the Danelaw boundary was through that area and the Danish headquarters were at Bedford [Hillingdon, Middlesex, February 1998].

Image: Church Hill, Therfield Heath Nature Reserve, Hertfordshire; May 2016.