A creeping woodland plant, Ground Ivy Glechoma hederaea forms carpets of beautiful mauve flowers on the woodland floor in May.
Lepidopterists keep an eye on the flowers as they provide a valuable source of nectar at a time of year that butterflies need sustenance. In the King’s Forest it provides nectar to one of our scarcest butterflies – the Dingy Skipper Erynnis tages. Like many small butterflies, it has a proboscis too short to reach deep into the nectaries of larger flowers. Bird’s-foot trefoil is the larval host plant, as well as being a good nectar source, but Ground Ivy is available earlier in May than Bird’s-foot trefoil, so it serves a special need.