It has been rather cold recently, except for a day of spring-like warmth a week ago, when Honeybees and some Hoverflies were out and about, visiting Crocus flowers. The Snowdrops are in flower, along with another late winter flower, the Winter Aconite, Eranthis hyemalis.

Winter Aconites flower for a much shorter time than Snowdrops but their bright yellow flowers add much needed cheer at this time of the year.

I am gradually establishing them under the Cobnut tree on our allotment and I’ve just bought three more pots of them to plant. Like snowdrops, they establish better “in the green” as growing plants, rather than as dry tubers planted in autumn.

Winter Aconites grow well under trees in low grass and will bulk up to create early spring ground cover. The leaves are peltate with a number of notches and appear quite “feathery”, rather like those of the true Aconite (Aconitum species). It is probably from this resemblance that Winter Aconite gets its name. The scientific name Eranthis comes from the Greek er for spring plus anthis for flower and hyemalis means ‘belonging to winter (hyems)’. Unlike Aconitum, Winter Aconite does not appear to be particularly poisonous, though both genera are in the Buttercup Family, Ranunculaceae.

Winter Aconite in Earlham Cemetery, Norwich