Plant of the month - Fritillary

It is hard to believe that the fritillary, with its chequer board petals, isn’t an exotic, hot house plant, when in fact the Snake’s Head Fritillary or Fritillary Meleagris, is a native wild flower growing in British meadows particularly those that flood in the winter.

The exotic appearance of its flowers is reflected in its name. Fritillaria comes from the Latin fritillus meaning dice-box, possibly referring to the chequered pattern and meleagris means "spotted like a guinea fowl”.

However, while these delicate hanging flowers are usually in shades of purple, they also come in plain white. Extremely hardy and tolerant of both sun and shade, and happy in any aspect and a variety of soils, these bulbous perennials can also be grown from seed and are as happy in a container as in the front of the border, in a wildflower meadow or naturalised in long grass. They are also very attractive to bees being pollen rich at an early time of the year. Is it any wonder that they have been awarded an AGM by the Royal Horticultural Society?

Of course it isn’t all plain sailing. Fritillaries are members of the lily family and therefore attractive to the dreaded lily beetle. These, being red, are at least easy to spot and remove by hand if you wish to avoid pesticides, particularly those dangerous to bees. More information about control of lily beetle from the RHS here .

Fritillary Meleagris is the county flower of Oxfordshire and is found in abundance in the flood meadows of the River Thames. The Oxfordshire village of Duckington holds a Fritillary Sunday every year, though in 2020, like so much else, it was cancelled due to the pandemic. Hopefully it will go ahead in 2021.