April is the month for woodland wildflowers. They take advantage of the spring sunlight that filters through the bare trees before the canopy of new leaves casts the woodland floor into deeper shade.
 Unfortunately I've had very little free time recently so I haven't had the opportunity to wander off into the woods- I hope to rectify that situation over the Easter weekend. In the meantime I've been looking at some photographs from previous years and walking some of those paths in my mind. From the top here are some of the flora endemic to such places:
 Lesser Celendine (Ranunculus ficaria) covers the ground in sunny woodland clearings and in fact is very common all over the place- gardens, verges, wasteground etc. The photo above was taken in Butcher's Wood, a survival of ancient woodland at the foot of the South Downs near Hassocks.
 Wood Anemone (Anemone nemerosa) is a good example of the fact that many wildflowers have a symbiotic relationship with human activities. It does indeed flourish in woods but it likes some sun too so coppiced woods are an ideal habitat. This photo was taken in Spuckles and Kenneling Wood in Kent which is clearly a coppiced wood of old and A. nemerosa still thrives on the more open margins.
 I visited this wood because it has the colloquial name "Wilderness Down". It would have acquired that description centuries ago I'm sure but it sits on the High Weald and on a hazy day the Kentish landscape receding into the distance still seems remote from the teeming masses.
 Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) are the archetypal wildflower that carpets many of our historic woods and forests. Those above were photographed in a wood on the chalk hills overlooking the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire. These rolling hills retain pockets of ancient woodland. As I approached I thought for a moment that my eyes were playing tricks on me because there seemed to be a blue glow ahead. Then I realised I was about to enter a sea of bluebells spilling out from the edge of the trees.
 The scent was sweet, almost sickly but as I walked through the wood the other half of it was dominated by Ramsons (Allium ursinium), also known as wild garlic- smelling very pungent. It was almost like a battle; half the wood was held by the Bluebells, the other half by Ramsons. They met in the middle and fought each other to a standstill.
 The smell of Ramsons always recalls a walk I've done numerous times since childhood following the River Lym out of Lyme Regis to Uplyme a mile or two away. This densely wooded riverrun is thick with Ramsons and the air reeks of garlic. As the photo indicates they can grow in even the deepest shade.
 I realised recently that this walk is in fact the start (or the end) of the ancient ridgeway that ran from Lyme on the Dorset coast to the North Norfolk coast as far back as neolithic times.