Clock with five dials

I was delighted to spot the small, unobtrusive flowers of moschatel, Adoxa moschatellina, in the woods today. They put in a fleeting appearance at this time of the year in damp shady places before the growth of other plants overwhelms them. It's easy to miss what look like tiny green bobbles on fragile stems a few inches high but it's worth getting your knees dirty to inspect them more closely. The structure of the flower head is unique: shaped like a cube with a single flower on each outward face plus one on top. Not for nothing is one of its names five-faced bishop, although more often it's known as town hall clock (with one face on top? Richard Mabey says that as a child he was told that was for the Spitfire pilots to read.)

The first image here shows the flower head compared to a couple of lesser celandines for scale and the second is the best my camera could do to show the clock faces which usually have 5 petals each on the sides, 4 on the top, although some are aberrant. A much clearer set of images can be seen here.

I don't think moschatel has any established medicinal properties, that is to say none have been found yet. But just as digitalis was derived from foxglove, aspirin from willow and vincristine from periwinkle, it might only be a matter of time, and research, for this plant to yield a significant pharmacological discovery. However it was announced today that the funding of Britain's world-famous centre for botanical research at Kew Gardens is being drastically cut with the loss of 125 jobs.
Kew's collections and its scientists are globally recognised as an invaluable resource for research on biodiversity, climate change, conservation and crop improvement as well as the identification of plants that may hold the key to life-saving medical treatments.
Do please sign the petiton against these shameful cuts.