Do you like butter?

Cambridge University has revealed how buttercups are able to shine a yellow light under our chins when a flowerhead is placed close to it. It's great that some of these old childhood games involving plants are still being discussed. Do children still make daisy chains? Do boys pelt each other with burdock burrs? Do bindweed flowers still get popped, conkers still get smashed and do girls pick petals off of anything to hand reciting 'he loves me, he loves me not'?

Comments

Gavin Haig said…
Or using a blade of grass as a reed by stretching between two thumbs and blowing into cupped hands. Very loud!

And making a little gun from a plantain stem and 'firing' the seedhead.

Certain grasses (don't ask me which) also produced perfect seedheads for the boyish prank which went: 'Here's a tree, here's a bush, here it comes...in your mush'

I'm sure there must be loads of other examples. Yes Steve, I wonder how many are still in the young child's repertoire today?
14 December 2011 at 22:07
Steve Gale said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
16 December 2011 at 13:31
Steve Gale said…
There's a book in all of this Gavin - come to think of it, Richard Mabey has already done it. Flora Britannica. Well worth a browse.
16 December 2011 at 13:34
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