Opening my spiral-bound sketchbook, I catch a hint of vanilla from between its decade-old pages. The scent comes from a group of whorled leaves that I picked while making a drawing and pressed between thick sheets of cartridge paper. Set against a background of loose pencil marks, these are the star-shaped verticils of sweet woodruff, Galium odoratum, a UK native plant.
One of the indicators of ancient woodland, this is a perennial plant that grows in my local woods along with sanicle, dog’s mercury and the delicately arching grass, wood melick. A member of the madder family, its spoke-like arrangement of leaves and its four-angled stems show that it’s related to goosegrass, bedstraw and crosswort.
