Wild flower meadows burst into life

A late spring has brought meadow plants alive in May, but Britain's natural grassland is continuing to disappear

A late spring led to a big burst of wild flowers this month, but of all the native wild flowers how many green-winged orchid, oxlip, dyer's greenweed and meadow clary have been seen?

These are all meadow plants and they are becoming rare. The green-winged orchid is, despite its name, mostly pink or purple but with delicate green veins. Dyer's greenweed is a shrubby plant, a great food plant for moths and like its names suggests was once used as a very good dye, especially for wool. Meadow clary has striking deep blue flowers, and the name "clary" came from "clear-eye" because the plant seeds were used as a paste to soothe and cleanse sore eyes.