Each time you go to the forest you’re in for a (big) surprise. Not if you are shouting loudly to fellow cyclists, glued to your phone or otherwise distanced, but if you take the time to look, to experience, to be open, to be present.
‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair’ is a well-known line from a fairytale.
But it was not always thus.
I believe this to be a Spiked Rampion, 𝑃ℎ𝑦𝑡𝑒𝑢𝑚𝑎 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑚. In older German folk traditions the story was about a plant, not a girl in a tower. In the Grimm version, the pregnant mother craves a plant growing in a witch’s garden. Her husband steals it repeatedly. When caught, the witch demands the unborn child in payment.
That plant was “Rapunzel” and, like rampions, has edible white roots and tender leaves for salads.
I’ll leave it there.