Spring is the season of signs.
From the first twitchings of new life on the forest floor after winter’s
solstice, there’s a successional spring-tide of awakenings to be sensed and
savoured.
Perhaps, first amongst the many
floral harbingers of spring is the primrose – literally ‘first flower’ – which
graces woodlands and edge-lands any time from New Year to early summer. In
January a walk through the woods is often punctuated by pleasure the tantalising
peep of primrose petals – lemon-sherbet yellow amongst the leaf litter – their
pale purity a vivid contrast against the dark brown of the dead year. Primroses
were once one of the most commonly picked wildflowers, and rural custom
dictated that offering someone a posy with less than thirteen blossoms was a
thinly veiled insult. Nowadays, it feels wrong to do anything other than admire
their vernal exuberance in the places where they unexpectedly appear leading us
deeper into the woods; like florescent Will-o’-the-Wisps.
On willow trees and hazel coppices
catkins, which formed the year before and were held tightly inconspicuous
through winter, now unfasten and fluff-up to join the spring presage. Dangling
down like lambs’ tails (another of their evocative vernacular names), they
dance animatedly at the slightest stirring in the spring air. Infused with
associations of fertility, folklore holds that a profusion catkins portends an
abundance of babies; ‘plenty of catkins;
plenty of prams’.
A little later than the first
flowers, a walk in the woods is imbued by audio anticipation; ears straining in
hope to hear the first returning chiffchaff of the year. Its distinctive call –
like squeaking sneakers – is a springtime serenade that emotionally translates
as: ‘all’s well with the world once more’. If we’re lucky we might also catch
sight of a brimstone butterfly, fluttering slowly through the open spaces of
the trees like a fragment of sunshine; its buttery yellow colour allegedly giving
rise to the word butterfly itself. According to Tove Jansson’s literary
creature, Moomintroll, to see a yellow butterfly as your first of the year
foretells a fine year ahead. Amongst so many numinous seasonal auguries, who
could argue?
As spring unfurls and uncurls the
leaves of beech trees become luminous lime-green in the sunlight; like the
stained glass windows of a great green cathedral. The warmer air is suffused
with the sweet and savoury smell of wild garlic, also known as Ramsons,
emerging in huge swathes under the trees and adding a welcome tasty tang to the
sensation of spring.
In other leafy places, but rarely
amongst wild garlic, bluebells punctuate the palette of spring greens with
their haze of intoxicating blue hues. Bluebell flowers were once worn on lapels
to celebrate the feast day of England’s patron saint – St George – and they
generally still chime in time for the 23rd April. Older folklore
associates bluebells with the faerie folk, and it’s claimed that if you ever actually
hear them ringing in the woods then
you’ve inadvertently walked out of this world and into the ‘otherworld’…
Originally published in Leaf! - a newsletter produced by The Woodland Trust and Common Ground: https://treecharter.uk/2016/04/26/leaf-spring-issue/
