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| Pond Wood, April 2014. |
The bluebell is
the sweetest flower
that waves in
summer air;
its blossoms have
the mightiest power
to soothe my
spirit's care...
(Emily
Bronte)
Writing this I have
realised that the fragile beauty of bluebells shines a bright light
on my perverse nature. Always drawn to the underdog, I insist on
preferring carrion crows to 'show-offy' ravens and have often ignored
bluebells altogether. Voted our favourite national flower in 2002,
and currently leading Plantlife's new national wild flower poll, they
are just too popular and too pretty and I wilfully refused to be
swept away by the beauty of their shimmering cobalt sea. But I have
to admit to having become intoxicated by bluebells. I have much to be
grateful to them for.
In 2014, I met my
love, Simon in a bluebell wood in Kent whilst attending a shamanic
weekend. Having recently been through a bereavement, I felt that the
land had called me there and that the bluebells, which flowered very
early that year and smelled so powerfully of green and honey, were
offering me healing. I spent much time sitting in the middle of an
expanse of bluebells letting the land 'see' me and allowing bees and
other flying things to hover in front of my eyes. I went for a walk and found a
jay's wing feathers scattered electric-blue across the woodland
floor. Everything was the blue of ebb and flow and letting go and
love came in. We should never underestimate the power of seemingly
delicate bluebells to unlock magic. As Peter Marren writes, “No
woodland scene has the power to move the heart more than a bluebell
wood in May” and so it was.
Born new each year,
bluebells are often a sign of the oldest of the old undisturbed land.
Almost 50% of the world's bluebells can be found in the UK and they
are an indicator of ancient woodland, many bluebell woods dating back
to at least 1600. The Elizabethans knew them as 'jacinths' and used
their bulbs to make stiffening starch for ruffs. Earlier still 'glue'
from their stalks was used to stick pages in books and feathers on
arrows; our relationship with the bluebell tribe has been much more
than just aesthetic. Appearing in hedgerows or bracken they are a
vestige of woods long since vanished. No wonder that their hanging
heads are sometimes said to be symbols of sorrow and regret.
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| Pond Wood, April 2014 |
Indeed, the folklore
of bluebells is 'edgier' than we might have imagined. Like all of our
oldest native flowers, they have myriad folk names; cuckoo's boots,
crowstoes, granfer griggles, goosey ganders, wood bells, bell
bottles, but many; fairy caps in Wiltshire, fairy bells and fairy
thimbles in Somerset, fairy cups and fairy ringers in Dorset, give a
clue to the tales about them which are so often linked to the world
of faery. But these faeries are not the sweet little creatures with
petal hats that we find in our familiar fairy stories. These are
tricksters and charmers. It was said that faeries used bluebells to
trap passers by, particularly children, and it was considered
dangerous to try to walk through a bluebell wood as the flowers were
so intricately entwined with enchantments that one might become
'pixie-led'. We might smile now at such superstitions but it is never
easy to tear ourselves away from the hypnotic beauty of a carpet of
bluebells in a dappled woodland, seeming as they do to almost pulsate
with ethereal voltaic light. It is a struggle not to get lost in
glamoury, such is the seduction of the vision. Other traditions
suggest that wearing a bluebell wreath would compel the subject to
tell nothing but the truth, that someone hearing the ringing of a
bluebell would soon die (hence the sometimes-name 'deadman's bells'), and that
if a flower could be turned inside out without it becoming torn then
true love would be won.
Their scientific
name, hyacinthoides non-scripta,
comes from a Greek myth that Apollo accidentally killed a young man
called Hyakinthos; where
his blood fell wild hyacinths grew and the markings on their leaves
appeared to spell out the Greek word for 'alas'. Bluebell leaves, in
contrast, are unmarked and so 'non-scripta', meaning
'no writing', signals that they are a different flower. Despite
their scientific name distancing them from death, bluebells are in
fact extremely poisonous and contain at least fifteen active chemical
compounds, which may provide them with protection against foraging
animals. Their water-soluble alkaloids are being studied for their
medicinal qualities but they also contain glycosides, called
scillarens, which are similar to those found in foxgloves and can
lower the pulse rate and cause nausea, diarrhoea, and
vomiting. At
higher doses they can cause cardiac
arrhythmia and electrolyte
imbalance. Existing
on the edge between love and death, joy and sorrow, grief
and gratitude, the bluebell
tribe establish a poison sea
that reminds
us to respect even the
ostensibly inconsequential,
to acknowledge that the
sweetness and the sting can
exist in one small
being.
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| Oxleas bluebell, April 2015 |
Just
as they are said to be able to entrap humans, bluebells
possess a woodland like few other plants can. They respond to the
light and so flower in April and May, before trees are fully in leaf.
They deter most competitors
both through their poisons and through sheer force of numbers. It
is important that they have this collective strength as it takes at
least five years for a bluebell to grow from a seed to a bulb and
then to flower. They are under threat through habitat loss, from
their bulbs being uprooted for gardens, and from the grazing of
sheep, cattle, and muntjac deer. Bluebells are protected under the
Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and it is now an offence to trade
in their seeds or bulbs, with a breach attracting up to a £5000 fine
per bulb. A further threat to
our own native bluebells comes from hybridisation. The Spanish
bluebell, 'hyacinthoides hispanica',
is a native of the Iberian peninsula and was introduced to the UK as
a garden plant, possibly as
long ago as the 17th
century. It can be
distinguished from the English bluebell by its larger, paler flowers,
erect stem, broader leaves, and blue anthers (the English bluebell
has creamy white ones). It is also said to have very little smell,
although this has not been my own experience. The Spanish bluebell
interbreeds very successfully with the English variety, creating
fertile hybrids, and the latter is now considered a threatened
species. In a recent study by
Plantlife, one in six of the bluebells found in the broadleaved woodlands surveyed were
found to be hybrids.
I
have mixed feelings about our
often sentimental efforts to preserve 'purity' in nature when nature
itself has no such attachment; hybrids can often be stronger and afford plants greater protection against changes in environment. It is telling that the bluebell is dedicated to our St George, the Palestinian saint of the English, who has connections to so many lands and peoples. The English have always been hybrids. I had an interesting conversation
about the subject with Norma Saunders, of the Dawn Chorus Educational Initiative, who commented
that, "Human
society seems strive for a purity that is not sustainable in the face
of climate change. I love Ruddy
Ducks
& Sycamore trees & oppose the eradication programmes
for so many species. They are living beings & deserve respect &
a chance of life & after all, adaptation via natural evolution
may be key to survival. However, I love English bluebells...they are
so much nicer in delicacy, colour & scent than the Spanish ones
&, as an indicator of ancient woodland, they carry the spirit of
British woodlands. But I fear that the Armada will win this time...I
see no way of preventing the interbreeding. The contamination of
isolated bluebell woods, however, serves as an illustration of the
huge range of travel of pollen & the dangers of GM
crops...perhaps this sad example which indeed unbalances the chain of
biodiversity is a gentler, vital message that we must heed in the
case of science meddling with open pollinated communities."
Bluebells,
like all our green allies, are great teachers. In the meantime,
Spanish bluebells do seem to flower at the same time as our native
variety and I have seen bees collecting from them so hopefully,
whatever happens, the niche of the bluebell tribe will continue to be
occupied.
Writing
this piece I began to reflect on what it might be like to experience
'bluebell consciousness'. They feel to me to have a collective
consciousness much like that of bees, and with similar worlds which
are both visible and veiled. Above the surface are the mass of
flowers with which we are so familiar and yet, beneath the woodland
floor where
the work takes place, secret
things are stirring. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote in 'Adeline', "How the merry bluebell rings to the mosses underneath...". The bluebell bulb has contractile roots, which
draw it deeper and deeper into the soil and there they connect with a
web of arbuscular mycorrhizae; symbiotic
soil fungi which helps the bluebells take up phosphorous and water
over a greater area than the plant could do alone and, in return,
receives food. Each mycorrhizae may create a surface area several
hundred times that of its host and forms a vast network
of communication. And
what of our own place in this ancient warp and weft? Nothing in
nature is just an 'object'. Everything is a system in constant
movement and often we discount
our own place in that movement. Such
is the intoxication and enchantment, both
visual and olfactory,
of the flowering of a bluebell wood that, perhaps, they offer us an
invitation to weave ourselves back in. How
must it feel to that great and
complex structure of flower, and fungi, and leaf to have our
collective joy and appreciation added to it? How many of us send out
the energy of our hearts into that space just before the haze of
bluebells begins to shimmer in an immense common yearning for the
year to move forward into summer? How must it feel to be loved so
deeply? Perhaps we can ask the people of the bluebell tribe and, sitting in a bluebell wood full of green and honey, how could I not be ready for love to
come in?
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| Pond Wood, April 2014. |
References:
'England in Particular: a celebration of the commonplace, the local, the vernacular, and the distinctive', Sue Clifford & Angela King, Hodder & Stoughton, 2006.
Further investigation:
Common Ground is a wonderful charity which explores the relationship between nature and culture, including our relationship to our iconic bluebell woods. Find them at
http://commonground.org.uk/
