The colour purple

This week it’s:

THIS Thursday (26 March) is Purple Day when millions of people around the world raise awareness of epilepsy. Purple Day was created in 2008 by Cassidy Megan, from Canada, who has epilepsy. Cassidy wanted to get people talking about epilepsy and to raise funds. She chose the colour purple as the symbol largely because lavender is recognised as the international flower of epilepsy. In the UK, the leading epilepsy charity is Epilepsy Action (epilepsy.org.uk). Conveniently, this leads us to purple plants – and there are plenty of stories connected to the colour purple.

■ Ornamental onions (alliums) are the archetypal purple flower, but I’ll discuss these in next week’s Miscellany.

Purple – the colour and plants

CURIOUSLY, the colour purple (as with