Like an ethereal wood-sprite who only appears in your peripheral vision rather than being in focus when you look directly at it, this, the first flower spike on either of my bugle plants refused to allow me to focus fully on the uppermost open blue flower each time I pressed the shutter. The dark green-purple foliage spreading like slowly creeping arms to fill the bare ground below the winter honeysuckle, where I can make nothing else grow, is now throwing up thick, hairy purple spikes where these little blue veined flowers bloom. Their shape reminds me more of fairy-tale creatures, of fairies disguised as flowers, or as one with flowers, possibly more than any other in my garden, reminding me of days of poring over Brian Froud's fantastical books.
This perennial woodland plant is also much loved by bumblebees and is a good early nectar source for green-veined white and orange-tip butterflies. The wild flower, native to most of the British Isles, is Ajuga reptans. The two I have, Ajuga reptans Braunherz, are cultivars of this and are easy to grow under almost all conditions.
References:
Thomas, A. (2017) Gardening for Wildlife, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
https://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/discover-wild-plants-nature/plant-fungi-species/bugle (accessed 03/05/2020)
https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/89313/Ajuga-reptans-Braunherz/Details (accessed 03/05/2020)
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