It was mid-June before I noticed the ragwort.  I came across the plant growing in one of the old passageways, the narrow paths lined by old stone walls that criss-cross the older, southern part of Totnes.  Ragwort is an opportunist, able to colonise almost barren places, and there were at least two plants, one or more growing out of the top of the wall and another from the junction between the wall and the path.  Both plants were already quite tall with thick green stems and finely divided leaves, each stem topped by a mass of immature flowers exhibiting hints of yellow.  I found several more plants in our street including one tall specimen growing from the pavement near the wall outside a house.   This example sported a large cluster of mature, bright yellow, daisy-like flowers (see picture at the head of this post), with insects coming and going taking advantage of this rich forage source.

Later that day, my wife Hazel told me she had seen a moth, bright red and black, near the ragwort in our road.  She thought it was a cinnabar moth, linked strongly to the plant.  Two days later, she saw another moth of the same species in the same place.  She has an impressive and uncanny knack of spotting wildlife so I decided to go out myself to look for the moths, hoping that some of her stardust might rub off on me. 

I didn’t see any of the moths near the ragwort in our street but when I went to look at the plants in the old passageway, I was in luck.  As I approached the ragwort growing from the wall, a bright red and black moth fluttered away disturbed by my arrival and I had a brief sighting of a second.  The first moth settled among the plants that form a loose covering of the wall allowing me to take some photos that confirmed this was a cinnabar moth.

At this time of year, cinnabar moths have recently emerged from pupae to mate.  The mated females then lay eggs on the underside of ragwort leaves.  The eggs hatch into larvae which go through several stages developing into caterpillars, with distinctive black and yellow stripes.  The caterpillars feed by eating the ragwort plants before digging themselves into the soil to spin a cocoon, overwinter and pupate, emerging the following year as an adult moth.

I thought it should be possible to see the moth eggs at this time of year if I looked carefully so I went to investigate the ragwort near where the moths had been spotted.  I looked under several leaves but was unable to find any eggs.  This may have been because I was already too late as when I first looked, there were one or two small larvae on one plant and a few days later, some of the leaves on the same plant were covered in masses of small caterpillars.  Presumably there had been mass hatching of eggs and based on their yellowish colouration, these were early-stage larvae.  They matured quite quickly as when I returned five days later, the caterpillars were fully grown with black and yellow stripes.  They had also dispersed consuming much of the plant as they went and leaving just the bare green skeleton.  The other plants in the passageway were also being consumed by larvae and in a few days all the ragwort plants there were skeletal.

Ragwort with its yellow flowers is an attractive plant lighting up our summer as well as being an important source of pollen and nectar for a wide range of insects.  The plant has, though, acquired an aura of danger and some people believe ragwort should be removed wherever it appears.  It is undoubtedly dangerous for horses and cattle, causing severe liver damage and death if consumed.  If ragwort grows in their fields, horses avoid the plant and don’t eat it but should ragwort get into hay for winter feed, this can be fatal.  For this reason, ragwort often suffers from systematic “pulling” of plants growing on farmland.

There is some concern that ragwort is also poisonous for humans but the risk seems to have been overblown and it would be necessary to eat large quantities for harm to occur.  Removal of the plant apparently to protect humans still occurs unnecessarily but judging from the speed with which the cinnabar caterpillars consumed the plants I saw, allowing nature to take its course might better.  It would also allow this important insect food to flower.   To read more about these issues, click here and here.

Putting aside the controversial aspects of ragwort, a stand of the plant with its sunny yellow flowers is an impressive sight.  The 18^th century poet, John Clare, was inspired by the plant and expressed many of its beauties in his poem “The Ragwort”.  Here is part of the poem:

Ragwort, thou humble flower with tattered leaves
I love to see thee come and litter gold,
What time the summer binds her russet sheaves;
Decking rude spots in beauties manifold,
That without thee were dreary to behold

The poet and essayist Edward Thomas, was also impressed by the plant.  He wrote about how, one summer, he came across ragwort on the Sussex Downs:

There a myriad oriflammes of ragwort are borne up on tall stems of equal height, straight and motionless, and near at hand quite clear, but farther away forming a green mist until, farther yet, all but the flowery surface is invisible, and that is but a glow.  (South Country 1909)

I was intrigued and puzzled by this description, partly as I hadn’t heard the term oriflamme before.    Apparently, the oriflamme refers to the sacred flag of the Kings of France used to lead soldiers into battle in the Middle Ages.  I had some difficulty appreciating this metaphor especially when I read that the oriflamme was blood red and attached to a gilded lance.  Then recently, we drove to Torquay, and in many places by the roadside, I saw ragwort plants, their bright yellow heads on tall narrow stems, like flags on poles.  I realised I had been too literal and began to see what Thomas had been thinking. 

Extending his metaphor, I remembered some years ago going to the WOMAD Festival in Reading where one of my abiding memories, apart from the music, were the many rows of colourful flags on long poles, another myriad oriflammes. Click here to see some pictures.