Wood anemone

Not the best photograph but I didn't take any others today so it will have to do and it is still quite pretty.

Wood anemone joins my list of things I planted ages ago and which never grew but which have suddenly popped up years after I planted them. It joins snowdrops, calendula and possibly winter aconites though I might have imagined that one.

It has an entry in The Children's Book of Wild Flowers and the Story of Their Names by Gareth H Browning which is both delightfully patronising and full of very interesting stories about the flowers. Here is a clip from the entry on wood anenome.

Now I will tell you some funny names. They are not really the proper names of the plant, and the only one which you should remember is Anemone. But this is what the children in some of the country villages call the flower: Bread-and-cheese-and-cider, Chimney-smock, Moon-flower, Smell-foxes and Smell-smock. I am sure I wonder as much as you do why anyone should call the plant Bread-and-cheese because, if you were so rash as to eat it, you would find it very nasty and bitter. Perhaps that is why it is called Cider, for cider is a bitter drink. Then, quite a lot of people, even those who are grown up, speak of an Enemy-flower; but that is an ignorant mistake, for what they meant to say is Anemone-flower.