Lords and Ladies

Also called Cuckoo-Pint (Arum maculatum), this plant is one of the first to pierce the soil with its leaves after the winter months. The leaves are very tightly furled as they travel through the earth and unravel the larger they grow. Better known for its extraordinary sheathed flower and later the bright red berried stick containing the poisonous seeds glowing in the autumn in the moist and shady undergrowth. The roots were gathered in Elizabethan times to make starch for stiffening the white linen roughs people wore. The poor laundry women must have suffered as their hands would have become red and blistered in the process.

T attended a spraying lecture which every arable farmer has to do to collect points which enable him to spray his crops for the year. Without them he would have to employ a contractor to do the job.