Townhall clock

There was a work party at the nature reserve today so I'm back home aching a bit and stinking of bonfires. It was a good day with none of the rain that was tentatively forecast for the Chilterns and we got a lot done. I was able to show the group a large patch of this plant, Moschatel or Adoxa moschatellina, that had shown in an area where they had cut and cleared thick scrub a couple of months ago. This is a great record for the reserve as I had only found a tiny patch before in a neighbouring wood. It is a spring flowering plant with a common name of 'Good Friday plant' as well as 'Townhall Clock', this latter name deriving from the unusual flower arrangement with five tiny flowers on the faces of a cube-like structure at the top of the stem - four of them like the faces on old civic clocks, but also with a fifth pointing up to the sky. As its other names suggest it has a delicate smell of musk if you get down close to it.