I grew up calling them “Crowtoes”, but people just stare at me as though I’m not quite all there if I try to use such an age-old country name for Bluebells these days. Meanwhile, if I’m quick enough and people are unable to get away from me in time, I treat them to a couple of  “interesting” facts about this threatened and therefore highly protected little Lily….1….Bluebells are only native to countries fringing the Atlantic Ocean!2….The plant’s tiny white bulbs were apparently used in olden times to make a remarkably efficient glue…a kind of medieval equivalent of Superglue, except that it didn’t just stick the top to the tube and your fingers to everything else!3….The bulbs also contain starch which the Elizabethans utilized as a stiffener for their ruffs…..Now you see why I don’t have many friends!

WARNING WILL ROBINSON! It is totally illegal to either pick, dig up or trample upon Bluebells wherever they happen to be growing in the British Isles and to do so, still carries a 12th Century mandatory death sentence whereby you are forced to watch re-runs of “Ye Olde Peter and Katie Show” until you beg to be put to the sword….I believe that two and a half minutes is the current record!