I hadn’t been in Cornwall in May since 1997, when my Father and I made an excellent week-long walk from Mevagissey to Porthleven. The place was better than it was before, because I am now a Bad Botanist.
The flowers were more beautiful because I knew their names. Some of them, anyway. We had been properly introduced, and that makes all the difference. Of course I had always known bluebells and foxgloves. But now I knew – or made a point of quickly learning – thrift, red campion, bladder campion, spring squill, tormentil, smooth sheepsbit.
A name is the first big step towards a closer personal relationship. “Without the name any flower is more or less a stranger,” said the botanist John Burroughs, and I quoted that as an epigraph to my new book.
And what about those three-cornered leeks? Before I arrived I was unaware they existed: in the week of our stay they lit up every day. The stems have three strong ridges making a clear triangle, and the flowers are drooping white bells. They were introduced in the 18th century and took a liking to the place. The cliffs glowed with them.
Every walk was a feast of colour: red from the campions, white from the leeks and bladder campions, blue from the bluebells, all set off by the rich yellow of the gorse. The bouncy green cushions of the thrift, topped with small pink globes, took command of all the most daring places, where the cliff beetles o’er his base into the sea.
In Brideshead Revisited, Charles asks Sebastian who designed the dome in the great house. “Oh Charles, don’t be such a tourist. What does it matter when it was built if it’s pretty?” I quoted that line too, because it used to be my attitude to plants. Now if I don’t know the name I try and learn it: and as a result I see far more than I did before. It’s got personal, you see. And that has made the world is a more beautiful place.
Hello Simon,
The fifth paragraph describes perfectly the images, I have brought back from last week’s annual walking holiday along the Pembrokeshire coastal path. Here, as in Cornwall, the flowers in May never fail to impress. Thank you.
Good stuff
I agree totally Simon with your lovely words on our wildflowers/plants.I walk to work here in Donegal and it never ceases to amaze me the bounty of wildflowers at our feet – germander speedwell, herb Robert, violets, vetch etc. – and the fabulous cuckoo flower in full bloom at min in harmony with the call of the cuckoo. I brought a bunch of cleavers into school on Friday and the pupils enjoyed throwing and sticking it on each other’s jumpers … some old-fashioned fun ! …We are blessed.
I’ve loved this piece, Simon….
Yes, naming the wild flowers is a delight….now living in the city I scour the edges of walls and pavements for familiar plants springing up each year, thankful that most are still hoed by hand from time to time….a stranger appeared during Covid – identified as Gallant Soldier, so heartening in difficult times! It has not appeared this year, possibly overwhelmed by tough grasses in its spot – the only place I’ve found it along Norwich lanes….