Bay watch

Discover how nature’s offerings have been healing and protecting for centuries

IT being the season for the painted purple ...

Originally a means of keeping a living record of garden plants, our 722 National Plant Collections–of everything from Abies to Zingiber –set the gold standard across the world. Charles Quest-Ritson meets some of the expert collection holders

Wherever you look – from our national flags to carvings on ancient buildings – you can see heraldic designs. They owe their appearance to a formalised system that’s a lot more complex than you might at first appreciate, explains Clare Hunt

Fortune has long supposedly favoured those who carry a four-leafed clover, but from where did the superstition originate, asks Ian Morton

Praised in poetry, cultivated by Duchesses and an important life force for insects, could it be that ragwort is unfairly maligned, asks Bethany Stone