WHERE herbicides have not done too much damage, there are plenty of wild flowers opening alongside the corn. In some fields an odd-looking flower called fumitory has run riot. It has pink blooms that are like tiny pairs of crocodile jaws running all the way up its stem, sometimes as many as 40 on one plant. The jaws are purple at the tip.
It has greyish-green leaves shaped like hawthorn leaves and goes scrambling all over the grass and other plants. Its name comes from the Latin fumus terrae or “earth smoke”, and may derive from an ancient belief that it just came up, without seeds, like vapour from the ground.
Other flowers growing among the fumitory include field forget-me-not, which has tiny blue flowers on its wiry stalk, and wild mignonette, which is an attractive little spire of creamy-yellow flowers.
Field pansies, which may be white or yellow, often grow on bare soil; sometimes they have a purple splash at the top of the petals. Pineapple mayweed is another rampaging field plant, often growing on well-trodden paths, with flowers like yellow cones.
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DJM