CSI: LAKE DISTRICT
One blue-sky morning in May 2018, I headed into the fells in search of England’s rarest mountain flower. Pyramidal bugle, Ajuga pyramidalis, only grows on a series of small rock ledges on an out-of-the-way crag in the Lake District. I’m not going to tell you exactly where, for reasons that will become clear.
I’d been asked to go and check on the Ajuga by Jeremy Roberts, master Cumbrian botanist and unofficial guardian of this vulnerable treasure. The task was a privilege, earned by several years of getting to know Jeremy and convincing him that I was a committed and knowledgeable enough naturalist to be admitted into his circle of trust. I’d asked him for directions to find the plants a couple of years previously, but I obviously wasn’t ready and was courteously fobbed off.
At the time, I couldn’t understand why Jeremy was being sowas incredibly rare, but this wariness seemed disproportionate. Surely no one steals rare plants anymore? Surely that curious Victorian collecting mania that contributed so much to the stripping of our natural heritage died out a generation ago?
