Checking out the field this evening I’ve just discovered this lovely patch of Devilsbit Scabious. A magnet for bees and butterflies it’s less common than its bruiser of a cousin the Field Scabious which you may have seen lining the roadsides of the Peak District in midsummer. Devilsbit (weird name eh) prefers damp spots and is a later flowered too; its more delicate, strappy leaves don’t have the deep ‘lobes’ of the larger Field scabious either.
I’ll keep a check on the patch over the next few years and try (!) to hold back the brambles that are becoming the real devils…(they’re such a clever plant)…but that’s another story.
Flora and fauna – Devils and other stories
