‘Bugle blue’
(Hopkins)
Culpepper writes that ‘if you be wise’ the medicinal virtues of bugle's lovely blue spikes will ‘make you fall in love with it’💙💜💙
#BlueMonday

It's Whitsuntide, the week following Pentecost, which for centuries was *the* season of the year for holiday-making and summer festival - a time for fairs, plays, games, dancing and parades. Some of the lost festivities of Whitsun Week: aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2011/06/whitsu…

I love the beauty of this Saxon road, worn into the landscape through centuries of walking.
It is Hollandridge Lane in the Chilterns - the sides of the holloway thick with moss & the young beech leaves acid green above💚

Lambs! Lambs! sitting tight
In the grass (not at night),
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy lovely symmetry?
🖤🐏🖤

'The flower-de-luce' (Winter's Tale)
Yellow flags unfurling along the #Oxford canal 💛
Flags are one of our two native irises & I love the idea that their extravagantly drooping petals may be the inspiration for the fleur-de-lis💛⚜️💛
#SundayYellow #ShakespeareSunday

Lovely bit of etymology here.

A new woodland walk & a glorious snowfall of wild garlic 🤍
Delighted to learn that the name Ramsbottom comes from the Old English for wild garlic 'hramsa' (from which we get the name ramsons) + 'valley bottom'.
(Hat tip to michael hampton!)

The white wisteria pergola in my local café 🤍🤍🤍
#Oxford
#FlowersOnFriday

Large white nectaring on garlic mustard 🤍🦋🤍
Garlic mustard is an edible plant with a bit of a kick (as the name suggests). It is also an important caterpillar food plant (esp. for orange tips) & goes by the lovely folk name of Jack-by-the-hedge 💚🤍💚
#FlowersOnFriday

One of five Green Hairstreak on the local patch in Cholsey, Oxfordshire enjoying this much needed warmth. BC Upper Thames Butterfly Conservation 🦋 NatureUK iNatureUK @

'Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!'
(Hopkins)

Whitebeam (white + Old English 'bēam' - tree) is just turning frothy with white flowers. But the name refers to the pale underside of the leaves - shown off to perfection as the leaves unfold 🤍

The delicate beauty of herb-Robert🌸
There are no shortage of suspects for its name - it may be named after Robin Goodfellow, Robert Duke of Normandy, St. Robert, St. Rupert, or a certain 11th-century monk who used it as an effective cure🩷 #FolkloreThursday

Spectacular!😍

Wild cowslip and orchid meadow 💛💜💛
Meadow' comes ultimately from the Germanic verb for 'mow.'
The related Latin word 'meyare' means 'to pile into a stack/store in a barn' 💛
#EtmologyOfTheDay

'Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!'
(Hopkins)
May-mess - a perfect word for when verges are frothy with cow parsley & hawthorns white with May blossom🤍💚🤍

The stunning blue of germander speedwell 💙💚💙
'Germander' derives from the Greek 'chamandrua' - meaning ‘oak on the ground’ - as the leaves resemble oak leaves
#BlueMonday

Standing stones of West Kennet Avenue at #Avebury - originally 100 pairs of stones stretching over a mile. Stunning in the spring sunshine, bright with buttercups, cow parsley, May blossom and dandelion clocks💛
#StandingStoneSunday

I ventured out to find a Green Hairstreak & found this one basking in the sunshine 👏🏻 It was so much smaller than I had expected! Another one off my list! 🦋💚

#TwitterNatureCommunity #TwitterNaturePhotography #nikonphotography #nature #Butterflies #insects #Lepidoptera #green

Bluebells & ferns 💜💚💙
The bluebell is a symbol of constancy and may be the origin of the tradition that a bride should wear ‘something blue’ on her wedding day.

Purple and magenta gems of vetch along the #Oxford canal 💜🩷💜
Vetch has a 'papilionaceous' flower form - said to resemble butterflies, hence the name🦋
#FlowersOnFriday