I find this picture of commercially grown cowslips strangely upsetting
Of course it is great to see them & to know that farmers are being subsidised to plant this now rare species
I do not think of it as a meadow plant at all however, & not as one which enjoys being a crowd either
It was one of my real favourites as a small child, coming into flower as early as it does. Pale, tall & slender, dainty & demure, not brassy & blousy, like buttercups
But it grows scattered in sunny limestone areas, happy in its own company
The dale where I spent those early years is now abandoned by its human inhabitants - no room for more than a single track lane, no good for a modern property-owning, car-owning democracy - & has been declared a Special Site of Scientific Interest, left to nature with many botanical surprises, & even locally rare species
And it is thanks to searching for cowslips on the web that I found out that last bit of information
