Crocuses in Waterlow Park.

According to Greek myth, a youth named Crocus had an affair with a nymph called Smilax. He became unhappy with the relationship and the gods turned him into a plant (and Smilax into a yew tree).

Others think Crocus unalived himself when the gods refused permission for him to marry Smilax. Flora, goddess of flowers, turned them into plants out of pity.

Pulmonaria, aka lungwort! So named because people thought the spotted leaves looked like diseased lungs, and in the Doctrine of Signatures, a plant part resembled the body part it was believed to treat.

Primroses meant 'early youth' in the Victorian language of flowers, according to Mrs Burke's Language of Flowers dictionary.