After nearly two months of torrential rains, the countryside is now as green as a billiard table, splashed with heaps of dazzling white hawthorn blossom. Trees are in full leaf and grasses are thick and lush, although their vigorous growth is shading out some of the smaller flowering plants, such as the early flowering orchids. But dandelion flowers have sprouted up in huge numbers, gorging themselves on the moisture as well as nutrients washed off farms and gardens. The name dandelion comes from the French "dent de lion", meaning lion's tooth from the toothed edges to their leaves. And in a warning sign of the changing atmosphere, the leaves may be getting toothier as carbon dioxide levels increase, as well as making the plants grow taller, lusher and stronger.
Flowers such as dandelions also have a canny habit of closing up in the wet weather to protect their pollen from the rain. But now the sun is shining, the flowers are open and making a more dramatic display.
Another remarkable spring flower is the mountain avens. This is an ancient relic of the cold climate at the end of the ice age and now grows on mountainsides in Scotland and Snowdonia. In the cold mountain air, the rose-like flowers track the path of the sun during the day like small solar energy collectors, trapping the sun's warmth to entice insects to visit and pollinate, and afterwards the heat is used for incubating the developing seeds.
