The Monet pool in Denver Botanic Gardens is home to 150 species of the water lily, the plant that made Claude Monet so famous. I had left my easel at home, so went for a more photorealistic interpretation here. The canopy is bare in Shoreham woods, but not for much longer: spring is just around the corner. Shoreham woods puts on its best show in the spring, playing host to a legion of bluebells. Dasylirion leiophyllum (commonly known as green sotol or smooth-leaf sotol) in the University of California Botanical Garden. It is native to North American, and common in the Chihuahan desert. The word "sotol" appears in the common names of many other species in this genus of the asparagus family. The distilled spirit sotol, however, is made from Dasylirion wheeleri, or desert spoon. An abstraction of newly enflowered heather and a fallen birch branch on Chobham Common. When I stopped for lunch under this small-leaved lime tree during a walk along part of Offa's Dyke Path, I didn't realise that it would also give me the strongest image of the day. Small-leaved limes are indicators of ancient woodland in the UK, and this lime tree is not lying - the misty backdrop you see here is Cadora woods, one of the many areas of ancient woodland in the Wye Valley. Where bracken grows, little else can. It ruthlessly outcompetes other plants, and some studies have also shown that when it dies back, the rain leaches toxins from it which inhibits other plant growth.