Rosebay Willowherb

A beautiful, but very much overlooked, wild flower. It has various names (Bombweed, Fireweed, Ranting Widow). The name Bombweed came from its sudden appearance on areas devastated by bombs, particularly in London, during the Second World War.
It was once a scarce woodland plant and I once 'translated' (for a local history group) an order from a seed merchant in my local area placed in the early 18th century. The local history group had a letter/order to a seed merchant in York for delivery of seeds to sell to local gardeners. On the list was Epilobium angustifolium which is the latin name for Rosebay Willowherb. In the late 17th early 18th century then, it was sufficiently scarce to be ordered from a seed merchant.
Nowadays it is everywhere but, no single factor explains its spread and therefore why it has become such a common flower and grows just about anywhere where there is a space for it. When I was a child it even grew out of the side of our old chimney stack.
I will leave it to the reader's imagination as to why it was/is called Ranting Widow. My own theory is that the flowers are the same colour as the face of a ranting widow although I haven't seen many of them!