Nature Watch, with Ron Freethy

LATE April and early May is a wonderful time for botanists as the spring flowers are at their best.

There are so many to choose from that it is hard to know where to start.

Our ancestors always knew where to start because most flowers had a use in the days before supermarkets and chemist's shops.

Jack by the hedge, for example, was sometimes known as hedge mustard. It was so named because of its taste and was added to salads as well as being dried and used as a flavouring.

Long ago, only the well-off could afford pepper. The leaves of this plant, which has white flowers, are the food of the pretty orange tip butterfly. Only the male has orange tips to the wings - in the female they are black. Another pale flower is the white deadnettle, so called because the leaves resemble those of the nettle. They do not sting, however, hence the name "dead" nettle. Anybody rash enough to touch a stinging nettle in spring will soon find out that they are far from dead.

Country folk 50 years ago still collected nettles and cooked them as a vegetable. Providing they are cooked in butter, they taste very nice. The cooking removes the sting and they taste not unlike spinach. The leaves of nettles are rich in vitamin C but a much richer plant in this respect is the mayflower, also known as lady's smock. We have forgotten the old names these days but the shape of the flowers, its four petals arranged in a cross, resembled a lady's smock as it was hung out to dry in the sun.

All plants have fascinating tales to tell but few are as interesting as the common coltsfoot. Its leaves are shaped like a colt's foot but it was the seed heads, resembling a dandelion clock, which were valuable. These were soaked in salt petre, dried and used in tinder boxes to strike sparks before matches were invented.

So the next time you look at a flower, don't just think how beautiful it is. Think about the use our ancestors made of it.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.