Button Up, It's Spring!

It is the vernal equinox, the first day of spring. We've had some lovely weather lately but today has been dull, windy and very cold. The blackthorn has come into flower and I thought of the saying, "Beware the blackthorn winter." It's quite usual to have a frosty spell when the sloe bush blooms.

I was delighted to see the first blooms of shirt-buttons, so called because the flowers are very similar to the, much larger than those of today, buttons of men's shirts when I was a child. The plant is also known as stitchwort as it was said to cure a pain in the side. It is a food plant for the larvae of moths including the Angle Shades.

This is the pagan feast of the goddess Eostre, who symbolises fertility and new beginnings. Her name gives us the word oestrogen, bright green and yellow are her colours.