The Snake’s Head Fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris) was chosen as the county flower of Oxfordshire in 2002. It is an iconic chequered purple and white lily, bold in colouration with pendulous bell-shaped flowers on a delicate arched stem with long slim leaves, and when the flowers bloom a field is transformed into a legion of miniature dancing harlequins. It’s quite a spectacle.
Once common in wet meadows across south and central England when traditional hay meadows were left grazed from August to February giving the species the time to grow, flower and shed their fully ripened seeds before the harvesting of a hay crop in July. Each April fields would burst forth with thousands of these nodding bells and the flowers were picked to be sold as cut flowers in Oxford. Sadly the numbers rapidly reduced when land was drained and ploughed during the Second World War in order to grow and it is now rare to see these flowers in the wild.
You can however still see the spectacle of an occasional old-fashioned fritillary field in Oxfordshire, along the flood-meadows of the Thames and in Magdalen College’s Meadow in the heart of the city, or out west at the North Meadow National Reserve near Cricklade. Over at Iffley meadows where The Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) have been carefully managing conditions to enable them to thrive and their numbers to have built from less than a thousand plants 35 years ago to approaching 100,000 now according to their yearly census of the snakes head population!
At the church in Ducklington near Witney you can take part in an annual’Fritillary Sunday’ celebration (16th April 2018) with traditional music and morris dancing to enjoy as well as the chance to stroll amongst these wildflowers on Ducklington Mead. Don’t forget to look out for dragonflies and butterflies too.
There is also a Fritillary Weekend at Waterperry Gardens the same weekend (www.waterperrygardens.co.uk; admission fee applies.)
Esther Lafferty's Inkwell 