I had planned for our next profile to feature two closely related, but quite different perennial, ‘Spinaceous plants’, to borrow a term from Webster and Parkes (1855), namely, Sea Beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima) and Caucasian Spinach (Hablitzia tamnoides). Looking back over our last post, I also realise that – with my characteristic and wildly off-the-mark expectations about how long it will take me to do something – I promised this piece would materialize about a month or so ago……

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Buck’s Horn Plantain, as it is most commonly known in the English-speaking world, or Plantago coronopus, as it is known to the international scientific community, is by most accounts an unassuming little herb. However, it has a long history of use both for food and medicine. Insofar as it falls into the former category, it is particularly esteemed in continental Europe, where it has been cultivated and collected from the wild for use as a vegetable for centuries. Despite this…

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Bladder Campion, or at least the Common Bladder Campion, Silene vulgaris, is a perennial herb with attractive, light-green leaves, occasionally flushed purple, and with a noticeable bloom, which gives them a glaucous appearance. Delicate white (or occasionally pink) flowers, with deeply notched petals, appear in Summer and into early Autumn, gently nodding at the top of its numerous, slender, branching stems. Once acquainted with these, they become instantly recognisable because the petals are attached, at the base, to a distinctive,…

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