Project Blog

Find out the latest news on the events and stories around Wildflower Europe. Who's taking part in the Patchwork Meadow and what's happening with the Wildflower Festivals?

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Ray Mears Cuckoo Flower
Ray Mears chooses a suprising wild food plant
Ray Mears Cuckoo Flower Cuckooflower (c) Andrew Gagg - Plantlife 3

Ray Mears chooses a suprising wild food plant

The beautiful cuckoo flower or lady’s smock (Cardamine pratensis) was chosen by Ray Mears as his favourite plant. It grows in wet meadows in spring time and Shakespeare writes in Love’s Labours Lost that ‘lady-smocks all silver-white…Do paint the meadows with delight’. It was once cultivated and sold in markets as a salad plant and it leaves have a very high concentration of Vitamin C. It also provides food for the orange tip butterfly and is a key element at the base of the food chain which maintains the diversity of our ecosystems. The cuckoo flower is the county flower of Cheshire and Sir Frycheiniog (Brecknockshire), which was chosen by public vote in 2002. Although still widespread, the cuckoo flower is becoming less common because of the loss of meadows in general and wet meadows in particular.
Untitled-1 Clove Pink (c) Andrew Gagg - Plantlife, Kew BG, 57-36-65D,20.07.93

Gillyflower helps find lost portrait of Henry VIII's brother

Art historian and television presenter Philip Mould used his knowledge of plants to track down a lost portrait of Prince Arthur, Henry VIII's older brother and first husband of Katherine of Aragon.

When the painting first came up for sale the unknown figure was described as holding a Tudor rose. Philip Mould investigated the flower further and noticed the distinctive stigmas of a gillyflower or Dianthus species. This new information coupled with a search of the royal inventories at Windsor enabled the portrait to be identified as that of Prince Arthur.

The gillyflower or clove pink was a popular and important flower of medieval England which may have been introduced by the Normans. Chaucer talks of them being added to ale for its flavour and Shakespeare calls them the 'fairest flowers o' the season'. Its relatives both native and naturalised in Britain, include the pink (Dianthus plumarius), the Deptford Pink (Dianthus armeria), Maiden Pink (Dianthus deltoides) and Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus).

Philip Mould: 'wild plants are fundamental to our culture history - I would urge any one with an interest in wild plants, art or history to take part in the public participation project to create a Bayeux Tapestry – perhaps a few more historical mysteries will be solved along the way!'