Cowslip

Did you know?

• It is the county flower of Northamptonshire, Worcestershire and Surrey.
• In the ‘Language of Flowers’ it symbolises comeliness and winning grace
• Cowslip allegedly means cowpat! Our ancestors noted that they tended to flower where a cow had ‘slupped’.
• As an early spring flower, it is closely associated with much English folklore and tradition, including being strewn on church paths for weddings and adorning garlands for May Day.
• In addition to The Tempest, the ‘freckled cowslip’ also appears in Shakespeare’s Henry V as a sign of a well-managed pasture.
• Its scent is not dissimilar to that of an apricot. Richard Mabey describes the scent as ‘faintly fruity and dill-like.’
• Tea made from the flowers is meant to be good for insomnia, headaches and nervous tension. The scented flowers also make delicious wines.
• Some of the many enchanting vernacular names include freckled face, golden drops, bunch of keys, fairies’ flower, lady’s fingers, long legs and milk maidens. Welsh names include dagrau Mair, ‘Mary’s tears’. Paigle is another name used rather indiscriminately for any wild primula.
• The nodding flowers suggests the bunch of keys which were the badge of St. Peter. One legend is that Peter was told that a duplicate key to Heaven had been made and therefore let his keys drop. The Cowslip broke from the ground where the keys fell.
• They share their family’s tendency to produce a profusion of variations including the variety known to gardeners as ‘Devon Red’ and orange-flowered forms.