Sunday 5 April 2009

The Annual Coucou

For the third year in a row, here is a photo of a cowslip.

This year the cowslips appear to be slightly later than the last couple of years - on the first of April they were just coming into flower, and to find one that was flowering properly I had to climb down into a ditch where they were more sheltered.

The previous coucou photos are here and here

Simon

6 comments:

Bengt said...

From a swedish point of view. How do the cows do to slip on the flowers?

Susan said...

According to Flora Britannica the origin of the name is 'cow-slop' ie cow dung, a reference to the fact that their preferred habitat, at least in Britain, is cow pastures, and presumably they were as numerous as the cowpats in the fields.

Bengt said...

Cowpats?
This beatiful flower should never have to be connected to pats.
The correct word/pronounciation is of course cows-lip. Heureka! In S. this flower is protected by law.

Susan said...

I thought the answer would turn out to be cows-lip too, but Flora Britannica is the authority...

Pamela said...

My annual photo is one of November in Paris! And I just did my third last year. Love these little traditions we create for ourselves.

http://pamela.poole.free.fr/frogblog/?p=761

Marc Broussard sent me here. I translate LV Mag.

Nice to meet you!

Simon said...

Pamela - welcome to the blog. Now the tradition has self establish,I may have to carry the camera all March just to photo the first coucou I see each year!

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