While Herself was cutting up pieces of cloth and sewing them back together again, I spent an hour or so stomping up in the Pentlands looking for Blips. There was nothing too exciting to photograph in the time available so, today, you get some ragwort. Desperate honey bees will work this Jekyll and Hyde wild flower producing a honey with a bitter tang to it. It's not an unpleasant taste but I wouldn't want to eat much of it; many of the wild pollinators thrive on the plant while the cinnabar caterpillars use it as their staple food and so are toxic to predators.

The paddock, and the Exmoor ponies in the background (and extra) are owned by Edinburgh University who are obviously (I hope) aware that their charges are sufficiently intelligent to avoid eating poisonous plants unless, of course, said plants are incorporated into hay or silage when the toxins can cause terminal liver damage.


Other wild flowers share such conflicting attributes.