Salad burnet

Thanks to everyone who posted such lovely comments on my dainty damselfly duos - they hovered in the Spotlight for some time :)

It's been a good day - the first day for a long time that I haven't been in pain, though my foot and lower leg are still slightly numb and feel somewhat odd. I first noticed that something felt different yesterday evening - I think the anti-inflammatory action of the painkillers has finally allowed the muscle to come out of spasm, taking pressure off the sciatic nerve.

I had a gentle walk round Castor Hanglands this morning - so many flowers out now - and I was serenaded by at least three nightingales. It actually didn't hurt to hold the camera, so I ended up with lots of photographs, but my favourite is this macro of a Salad Burnet flower, with the golden anthers dangling, and the deep red feathery stigmas poised to catch windblown pollen.

Salad Burnet Poterium sanguisorba is a low-growing herb of chalk and limestone grasslands which produces rounded, reddish flower heads from May to September. The leaves are famous for smelling of cucumber if crushed or walked upon, and this plant lives up to its name as a popular addition to salads and summer drinks. It was thought 'to make the hart merry and glad, as also being put in wine, to which it yeeldeth a certaine grace in the drinking'.