It is Easter Sunday today, many of you will be giving and receiving beautiful bouquets of flowers for and from your loved ones. However, there are also many Easter flowers you can see in bloom whilst on a countryside wander or even in your back garden. Here is a guide to our five favourite Easter flowers!
Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) (title picture)- Pasque means ‘of Easter’ and according to legend they spring from the blood of Viking Warriors and grow upon their graves. This magnificaent flower, with its bright yellow anthers and vivid purple petals. It is now a very rare plant and known to occur at just 19 sites in England and is restricted to very short, herb-rich grassland on south to south west facing slopes and is most commonly found on undisturbed chalk grassland
Hellebores (Helleborus sp.) – These common garden plants are popular as they flower throughout winter but also due to their characteristics including shade tolerance and frost resistance. Hellebores are highly toxic due to a variety of key components including protoanemonin, veratrin and glycosides. As a result, Hellebore is poisonous to cats, dogs and horses and are thought to contribute to many deaths in children throughout the 18th century.
Grape hyacinth (Muscari spp.) – 
These little blue jewels bring early spring delight to the garden. Grape hyacinth is a strong growing bulbous perennials that grow to 20cm in height with narrow arching green leaves. The egg shaped flowers of this genus typically cluster like grapes on their stalk, hence the common name, and are a deep violet-blue. Some say the folksy name “starch lilies” relates to their aroma, but other text suggests that the mucilaginous bulbs were actually once used to stiffen linen. Some people also refer to the grape hyacinth as “lent flowers” or “church steeples”.
Snakes head fritillary (Fritillus meleagris) – The latin name, Fritillaria, comes from fritillus meaning dice-box, which could refer to the chequered pattern on the flowers. Meanwhile the name meleagris means “spotted like a guinea fowl and the common name could derive from both the flowers pattern and the flowerheads hanging-like behaviour.
The flower itself is many shades of purple and can be seen between March and May. The plant has a small button-shaped bulb, containing poisonous alkaloids. It grows in grasslands in damp soils and river meadows. The Snakes head fritillary is native to Europe but in many places it is an endangered species that is rarely found in the wild but is more commonly grown in gardens
L
ily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) – Lily of the Valley is a sweet scented but highly poisonous woodland plant native throughout the northern hemisphere. Convallaria is a herbaceous perennial plant that forms extensive colonies by spreading rhizomes. The plants have white bell-shape flowers that are sweetly scented and have small red berries. This plant favours partial shade, sandy soils, moderate alkalinity and plenty of humus and usually flowers in March. The plant has been noted as a useful food plant for butterfly and moth larvae such as the grey chi moth.
