Britain last week lifted a ban on the railway transport of spring flowers. From Scotland the first boxes of snowdrops went south. The first gorse glinted gold on the Chiltern Hills. London's Hyde Park was carpeted with purple crocuses which lovers crushed, unmindful of the grunts of passersby.
Botanists haunted bomb cavities for London rocket (Sisymbrium irio), which flourished after the great fire of 1666. Already 95 types of flowers and shrubs unknown for decades before the blitz have been found in holes where nitrates from burning bombs have enriched the soil....
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