FRITILLARY

An entire field of garnet blooms nods along in the spring breeze, each posing elegantly yet also poised like a serpent bent on striking. Welcome to a Snake’s Head Fritillary meadow. On ‘Fritillary Sunday’, an annual event in mid-april, private grasslands are opened for the public to admire the spectacle. Relish the collective, as fluctuating light changes the intensity of the flowers’ colour – from burgundy to purple, and from ivory to silver. Then inspect an individual plant, its thrusting architectural leaves balancing the drooping, snakeskin-checkered flowerhead.