Wood Anemone

I spotted these wonderful wood anemone near Ripley this lunchtime. The recent  warm weather has brought all the wild flowers out of hibernation (although today it has been a lot cooler). I looked these up and discovered that as a species it's surprisingly slow to spread (six feet in a hundred years!), relying on the growth of its root structure rather than the spread of its seed. As such, it is a good indicator of ancient woodland. This patch has obviously been there for some time.


A few other nuggets of information:
- It is the county flower of Middlesex
- The Chinese call it 'the flower of death'  because of it's pale ghostly appearance
- Hoverflies love it
- It is poisonous to humans
- It is a member of the buttercup family