Latin name: Cardamine pratensis
Common name: Cuckooflower
Other names: Lady’s smock, bread and milk, cuckoo spit, mayflower, meadow bittercress, milkmaid, fairy flower, spinks
How to spot it and where to find it: Look in wet grassland, damp meadows, pond margins, ditches, roadside verges and riverbanks and you may see the delicate pale pink, lilac or white of the cuckooflower — so called because it coincides with the arrival of the cuckoo and its distinctive song. In the south of the country, it may appear as early as the beginning of April; further north it will be May. It is of medium height, with hairless, upright stems and a rosette of leaves at the base.
Interesting facts: In his Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey shows how the first full blooming of the…
