Pignuts

The woodland fringes and meadow edges where covered with Pignuts (Conopodium majus) in flower today, once a favourite with children who'd dig for the sweet tuber or 'nut' which is similar to a sweet chestnut or hazelnut, it has all but been forgotten now as children find themselves increasingly disenfranchised from their natural world and from playing outdoors. The nut can be quite hard to recover as it's located at the end of a fragile and twisting root, though when a fair sized example is recovered it's well worth the effort and makes for a tasty treat; care needs to be taken when chasing the nut, the stem as mentioned can twist and the nut may not be where you think it is and if you break the stem you efforts may end in failure. I'm always cautious of members of the Umbelliferae family as it contains some poisonous members and you can easily misidentify which is which, although only the Pignut forms a tuber of this sort. The photo above shows all the parts of the plant; their white umbel  flower, their much divided leaves, the developing seeds, the long winding root and tuber. These nuts have always been a collected food source, being identified from prehistoric contexts Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age; their continuation in folk tradition up until recent times is testament to their value as a food source.