Meadow clary and other wildflowers on a road verge in Blackheath, London
Credit: Matt Collins
Back in March, I visited a nearby wood for signs of spring after the long winter, walking beneath broad oaks and colossal ash trees and along avenues of thick, silvery hazel coppice. I found bird cherries clothed tip to root in breaking buds, tumbling over lemon primroses and the arrowhead leaves of arum lily; brimstone butterflies floated the rides, hornets hummed drowsily by, and right across the wood, willow catkins like fat caterpillars clasped the morning light as brightly as apple blossom.
But I had come looking for a sign of spring altogether new – new to me, at least – and relatively rare: the elusive yellow star of Bethlehem,