Sunday 18 April 2010

Small

A couple of very small flowers today. Firstly, a familiar Tree, but less familiar flower. The Holly is more usually seen covered in red berries, but the flowers also rather gorgeous - if a little on the small side.
The trees are 'dioecious' which means that male and female flowers are found on different plants. For this reason, anyone wanting to grow Holly in the garden in the hopes of getting lots of berries for Christmas and the birds, must make sure they get female plants.
A wild flower found in our lawn and garden borders next. This is a member of the cabbage family, the 'Cruciferae', Hairy Bitter-cress (Cardamine hirsuta) and the flowers are very tiny at about 2mm across.
Hairy Bitter-cress once formed part of the 'Nine Herbs Charm', a tenth century, Old English Charm to counteract the effects of poison. The charm also included things like Nettles, Mugwort, Thyme and Fennel.

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