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The spring squill flowers in dense blue waves along the clifftops to the north of me - at least it used to until the modern flood of coastal nature lovers
trampled it into oblivion. I knew a population where white and pink forms lay sprinkled through the carpets like embroidered stars in a night blue sky. Mostly gone now -
the site has become a National Trust car park. Small pockets survive where the people don't tread. I grow the blue one - I got it from Simon Bond at Thuya Alpines and I adore it beyond words, it flowers every year and makes me so sad. With its usual curt precision Plants of the World online says: "The native range of this species is NW. Europe to W. Medit. It is a bulbous geophyte and grows primarily in the temperate biome." No mention of tousle-haired Cornishmen crouching down to see it as the wind-blow sea tumbles from the rocks around them. Brian Mathew wrote: "This little spring Scilla is seldom cultivated and is perhaps best treated as an alpine house plant because of its diminutive stature. It is a compact plant with slender leaves that remain in good condition throughout the flowering period. Although normally in shades of lilac-blue, the trial included a good pink form which was introduced to cultivation from Scotland many years ago by Kenneth Beckett who named it 'Scottish Pink'. There was also a pleasing white form, more ivory than pure white. However, the species as a whole was not considered to have reached the required AGM standard." The 1999 Flora of Cornwall says: "Spring Squill is locally abundant along cliff-top slopes where the soil is shallow and the turf is short or other vegetation is sparse. It is found around the northern and southern coast, on the Isles of Scilly and inland on the Lizard Peninsula in the Erica vagans heaths. However, on the southern coast it is absent east of Nare Head." |
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