Excerpt from Letters in a Pandemic by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

I.

Each week I look for plants beginning with an assigned letter in the alphabet and for a letter
from a UK newspaper. I write to one of the week’s plants using the letter as a guide.

1.
ash
alder
ash
aconite
anemone
anemone
alkanet

March

SIR – I have just made a trip across borders in the daughter of the wind that included the blood
of her dead lover, Adonis, and buses. I didn’t see one heart being worn.

2.
blackthorn
bluebell
butterbur
blackthorn
blue grape hyacinth
barren strawberry
barren strawberry

I see that Britain has suggested that Spring should use the Army to build hyacinths to ease the
strain on everlasting love (report, March 9).

Regular Army hyacinths are staffed at cadre levels and would have to call in plants
from other units. Almost all their truth, constancy and gratitude staff work at everlasting love
facilities. To remove them would increase the workload of the everlasting love staff there.

3.
crocus
catkin
crocus
colt’s-foot
cherry plum
cherry laurel
common feather-moss


I am astounded that someone would assume that because it is flu-season, a flower is like the
flu. Have you not been watching the hedges, checking reliable blooms online?

Look at blossom. Pastures are admitting if they had dealt with this earlier, they would
not have the high number of yellows.

What Pliny is doing is preventing the flower from spreading exponentially, which is
happening to many perennials in Europe. Perennials all over the world are doing everything
they can to slow the spread of this radial yellow. Wake up.

4.
dock
daffodil
dandelion
dicranum scoparium (broom fork-moss)
daisy
-
dock

SIR – We recently took advantage of the early-morning “common plant shopping hour” at
waste ground. Our experience was quite different from what others have reported. We were
welcomed by helpful hedgerows and served by friendly roadside verges. There were lots of
nettle irritations but British reserve and politeness prevailed.