Lady's Mantle

Botanical name: Alchmilla mollis.

Emergency blip as I have had a busy day Spring cleaning cupboards!
(Haven't got very far, as I keep finding interesting things to read or look at!)

We have had a lot of rain again today, which has just stopped. So a quick dash into the garden!
I liked the look of the raindrops on these new little leaves which are just coming through.
We have quite a lot of this throughout the garden as it seeds itself everywhere.
However it is a plant I like. Especially the frothy chartreuse (lovely name! better than lime green!) flowers which come in June.

Have just found out that the reason it is called Lady's Mantle is because the very shapely and pleated leaves look like a lady's cloak in medieval times.

The plant is often grown as a ground cover, and is especially valued for the leaves in wet weather, as the water beads and sparkles on the leaves ( which is what I photographed here)
This is due to the remarkable dewetting properties of the leaves, whereby the contact force between the water and the leaf is so disfavoured that a thin layer of air penetrates the solid-liquid interface. These beads of water were considered by alchemists to be the purest form of water.
They utilised this water in their quest to turn base metal into gold.
Hence the name"Alchemiia".

I never knew any of this until I looked it up for this blip!
(you learn something new every day!)