Spanish bluebells

Singing the Bluebells

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Common plant names can be romantic, like “kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate” or fanciful, like “yellow archangel”. They can even be menacing, like “wolfsbane” and “bloodroot”. Most often though, common names are descriptive. In the case of “bluebells” this is both helpful and confusing. I know of at least three plant species that go by “bluebells”. All bloom in … Read more

Flowery Mead

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Back in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, European weavers created large tapestries that depicted tales from history or mythology.  They adorned the backgrounds of those tapestries with hundreds of small, irregularly-spaced flowers, often against a green or dark background.  This style, called “millefleur”, meaning “thousand flowers” was meant to suggest a flower-filled field.  The best … Read more