Mistaken identity

I have to say that I really enjoy your magazine and read it from cover to cover each month. You have inspired me to do the 1000 in a year and I am well on target for that – even in my 70th year!

Your articles are always interesting and I enjoy hearing about where others walk. Nick Hallissey’s piece about Norfolk was particularly interesting to me because I lived there for over 25 years and regularly visit family in the county. However, unfortunately there is a mistake in the label for the wild flower it features on page 83. The image is not of purple loosestrife as the caption says. Purple loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria, has six narrow petals in flowers growing in whorls up the stem. The flower you show is a woundwort, Stachys

species. It looks as if it is marsh woundwort, S. palustris,

especially as it was seen by water but I wouldn’t like to say for certain without more detail. But needless to say it is definitely not purple loosestrife.

Carol Wilson, by email