Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthornhedge. 'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass 'Silent Noon', Dante Gabriel Rossetti
FROM the beginning of May, every country road and lane is lined with the familiar froth of cow parsley. Fuelled by increasing nitrogen levels in the verges, the exuberance of the plant is unstoppable-mile after mile of it bobs and sways to passing traffic like a never-ending Mexican wave. Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), which is also known by the more decorative Queen Anne's lace, is the first in a succession of roadside umbellifers that adorns the countryside from spring to late summer. It belongs to one of the largest plant families in the world with more than 3,700 species, some 100 of which may be found in the UK.
The Umbelliferae or Apiaceae, as they are now known, are easily recognised by their elegant, umbrella-like flowerheads, but can be difficult to distinguish individually and include in their ranks some of our most delicious herbs and vegetables, as well as some of the deadliest poisons. With its fresh green, fern-like leaves and hollow, hairy stems holding aloft creamy umbels, cow parsley is the most widely recognised as it romps away along field margins, woodland edges and anywhere the ground isn't waterlogged. Its flowering coincides with that of the hawthorn and, together in a transient moment in May, they make the landscape look as if it has been sprinkled with flour.
In country churchyards, where cow parsley flourishes, gravestones appear to float magically in a sea of white. Here, as Dr Oliver Rackham wrote in The History of the Countryside, 'the cow parsley are a memento mori for in them is recycled, while awaiting the Last Trump, part of the phosphate of 10,000 skeletons'.
It is particularly striking against a stone-wall backdrop in Cotswold lanes, and, in urban areas, it swathes railway embankments and waste ground in billowing pale clouds.
この記事は Country Life UK の May 08, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の May 08, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Don't rain on Venus's parade
TENNIS has never been sexier—at least, that is what multiple critics of the new film Challengers are saying.
A rural reason to cheer
THERE was something particularly special for country people when one of the prestigious King’s Awards for Voluntary Service was presented last week.
My heart is in the Highlands
A LISTAIR MOFFAT’S many books on Scottish history are distinctive for the way he weaves poetry and literature, language and personal experience into broad-sweeping studies of particular regions or themes. In his latest— and among his most ambitious in scope—he juxtaposes a passage from MacMhaighstir Alasdair’s great sea poem Birlinn Chlann Raghnaill with his own account of filming a replica birlinn (Hebridean galley) as it glides into the Sound of Mull, ‘larch strakes swept up to a high prow’, saffron sail billowing, water sparkling as its oars dip and splash. Familiar from medieval tomb carvings, the birlinn is a potent symbol of the power of the Lords of the Isles.
Put it in print
Three sales furnished with the ever-rarer paper catalogues featured intriguing lots, including a North Carolina map by John Ogilby and a wine glass gibbeting Admiral Byng, the unfortunate scapegoat for the British loss of Minorca
The rake's progress
Good looks, a flair for the theatrical and an excellent marriage made John Astley’s fortune, but also swayed ‘le Titien Anglois’ away from painting into a dissolute life of wine and women, with some collecting on the side
Charter me this
There’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored and one of the most exciting ways to see it is from the water, says Emma Love, who rounds up the best boat charters
Hey ho, hey ho, it's off to sow we go
JUNE can be a tricky month for the gardener.
Floreat Etona
The link with the school and horticulture goes back to its royal founder, finds George Plumptre on a visit to the recently restored gardens
All in good time
Two decades in the planning, The Emory, designed by Sir Richard Rogers, is open. Think of it as a sieve that retains the best of contemporary hotel-keeping and lets the empty banality flow away
Come on down, the water's fine
Ratty might have preferred a picnic, but canalside fine dining is proving the key to success for new restaurant openings in east London today, finds Gilly Hopper