A rather fine cabbage

The Sands of Forvie are looking at their seasonal best with wild flowers out in profusion. This is Cardamine pratensis , commonly known as Lady's Smock or Cuckoo Flower. It is a member of the cabbage family.

The name 'Lady's Smock' goes back to Tudor times because of the perceived resemblance of the flowers to the ladies' smocks of the day. In those days the plant was also used was used to make starch for the ruffles that were then so much in fashion.

It is known as the 'Cuckoo Flower' because it appears at about the same time that cuckoos start to sing, as noticed by Will Shakespeare in his Love's Labour's Lost:

When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smock all silver white
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight.