Moonwart, Livelong, and Wall Peppers...

I love the way that some plants spring up wherever they like, clinging to walls, growing in gutters, survivors clinging to any tiny hold they can.

Moonwort grows everywhere in Wales, its creamy yellow flowers, waxy and smooth, could me made from that fabled moon cheese we all knew so well as children. On clear moonlit nights I wonder if the man in the moon drifts down to pick them.

Any crack or crevice in any wall is an opportunity for the Livelong and Wall Peppers. Give them an inch and they’ll take a yard, filling the space with a riot of life and randomness, making their own miniature world on a rock or two.

Moonwort, Livelong, Wall Pepper. Which herb gathering, old Granny named these I wonder and for what purpose - to make us smile, give us hope, to mix in potions to make us fly, get better, sicken, fall in love, make a good harvest?

Clinging to the rock and thriving can’t be easy but somehow they manage it. What a trick.