Winter bloomer

Last week we found this very early-blooming spurge laurel Daphne laureola coming into bloom on the bank of the river Tyne, near Hexham in Northumberland. I know this plant from one other location, in Wolsingham, Co. Durham, where it may well be of garden origin, but this Tyneside population, of about ten plants (three of flowering size) is the first I've found in Northumberland and it might be native. The black fruits, which ripen in summer, are eaten by birds that disperse the seeds, so it's never certain whether the plants are wild or are of garden origin. 

 Spurge laurel is a very easy plant to overlook unless it's in flower, because its glossy evergreen foliage has some resemblance to a small-leaved Rhododendron.

Click here for a post from 2014 about the Wolsingham plant and its pollinators.

The whole plant is poisonous, but despite its toxicity it was formerly used in what must have been very risky herbal medicine. This is what William Withering (who discovered the medicinal uses of foxglove) has to say about it in his Botanical Arrangement of all the Vegetables growing naturally in Great Britain, published in 1776: 'Very happy effects have been experienced from this plant in rheumatic fevers. It operates as a brisk and severe purgative. It is an efficacious medicine in worm cases; and upon many accounts deserves to be better known to physicians; but in less skilful hands would be dangerous, and it is possessed of considerable acrimony. The whole plant has the same qualities, but the bark of the root is the strongest. Dr. Alston fixes the outside dose at ten grains'.  

(DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!!!)