Country diary 1918: cold winds fail to check spring flowers

2 April 1918 Close at hand rise a group of single upright stalks, each topped by a small green knob, the inconspicuous flowers of the moschatel or adoxa

The golden kingcups light up the stagnant ditch which through the winter has been filmed with a yellowish scum. Their roots are deep in the ancient leaf-mould and decomposing twigs and branches, a rich, black ooze; this forcing-bed has sent up a thick cushion of leaves stretching from bank to bank, and now that the handsome flowers are out the ditch is transformed. On the steep bank below the now green
hedge the silver stitchwort is out; beside it is a bed of the trefoil leaves of the wood-sorrel, so acceptable in a salad, pleasantly acid; and amongst them the delicate lilac-veined flowers.