Figwort Weevil And The King's Evil

I know my wild patch like the back of my hand. I have three figwort plants. They're nothing much more than bunches of leaves at the moment but this morning I got down on my hands and knees looking for something specific. I accidentally found my first figwort weevil a couple of years ago when I went in close to get a pic of the strange small flowers.

Sure enough there was a pair mating, looking to the uninitiated like a couple of tiny crumbs of soil. They are from the cute Curculionidae family, I love their snouts and big eyes.

Figwort gets it name not (directly) from figs but from ficus, a term for piles. (Maybe haemorrhoids were given this name because when they are engorged and descended they can look like ripe figs?) This is because the root of the plant has swellings, which also gave rise to the scientific name of figwort, Scrophularia after Scrofula, also known as the King's evil. This is a tuberculosis infection of the lymph nodes in the neck which swell and suppurate.