Anyone who has taken the time to take a walk in the local countryside may well have noticed a startling low growing glossy yellow flower with deep green glossy leaves, often found in damp and shady areas. This plant is called Lesser celandine and is often known as the ‘Spring Messenger’ as its one of the first plants to flower locally.
The plant has long influenced literacy greats such as Wordsworth who wrote:
I have seen thee,
high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet
T’was a face I did not know.
The writer was thought to have requested that this flower be carved on his headstone which is located in Grassmere; unfortunately the Greater Celandine was used by mistake.