Returning from a wonderful week of sand dunes and salt marshes, walking in the woods this morning is like putting back on an old pair of slippers.

I make for an area near the footbridge which I haven’t visited for a while and find Wood Sage in flower. This plant isn’t really a Sage, the leaves aren’t very aromatic, and I think it would be much better called Wood Germander, consistent with the other species in the Teuchrium genus.

This common plant which I usually see growing along the edges of woodland paths has very subtle flowering spikes with pale green flowers and is easily overlooked. Two days ago I was lying on a close cropped salt marsh sward, finding the tiny shoots of its cousin Water Germander in one of the very few places it grows in the British Isles.