Fox and Cubs (Pilosella aurantica)

Dear Readers, no sooner had I penned my piece about UK wildlife on bank notes than I got a plaintive little email from Plantlife, the UK’s leading charity for wild plants and fungi. What about the plants? They asked, and of course they have a point. Where would the Marsh Fritillary butterfly be without Devil’s Bit Scabious? Aren’t the cliffs where Puffins live a pink froth of Sea Thrift? Aren’t foxes often seen peering through the Fox and Cubs (at least in my local cemetery)? Don’t frogs sit on lily pads and peer between reeds?

Well, hopefully the animals on the bank notes will be paired with plants and other features of their local habitat, but I think Plantlife would like at least one of the bank notes to make a plant or fungus the star. And this being the case, I wonder what would be a good one to pick? Here’s my shortlist, see what you think….

A really fine Chicken of the Woods mushroom (like the one below, photographed in Coldfall Wood by Neville Young)

A Pyramidal Orchid (like the one that I found in East Finchley carpark

Pyramidal Orchid

Chicory (for its lavender-blue colour)

Chicory

Flax,  because of its beauty and its usefulness….

Flax

Or how about something both pretty, poisonous and medicinal, like a foxglove?

Well, what do you think, Readers? Is Plantlife right, and should we have at least one banknote with a plant on it? I think I’m broadly more in favour of showing the animals, but in their habitat, making the point that plants are an essential part of an animal’s world. Maybe at some point we should have a whole set of botanical banknotes, after these ones have run their course? And if so, what plants or fungi would you choose?