Country diary: defiant flowers raise a stink on woodland floor

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: Clusters of stinking hellebore are attracting a flurry of aphids and small flies - a reminder of the microcosms that make a wood At the far end of the quarry, workers in spindleberry hi-vis use a pile-driving rig to hammer a yellow-headed nail into the ground, then conceal it under a traffic cone. The surrounding woods mind their own business. Trees turn inwards from what sunlight is left, but other greens are alive on the woodland floor and strange flowers mind stranger business.In the wood below the limestone quarry is a loose cluster of plants of stinking hellebore, Helleborus foetidus. The evergreen leaves are unique, with digitate leaflets, blue-green, saw-edged; the lower ones, each with three to nine segments, rise from two arches on the tip of the leaf stalks like elongated versions of the comb-like antennae of cockchafers. The uppermost leaves thicken into a tufty yellowy-green cluster protecting pale flower buds and, in defiance of the season, will open soon into cup bells with maroon lips. Continue reading...