Bulbs like daffodils and bluebells emerge quickly in Spring, using sugars stored in their modified stems. (Onions turn sweet on slow cooking.) The Tenby daffodils Narcissi obvallaris at Stave Hill are native to the UK. After flowering, the leaves manufacture sugars which are stored in the bulb again, before dying back. Bulbs also spread by producing new small bulbs on the side of the old ones, which continue. Established bulbs gradually form populations in a place over many years. They also spread over longer distances, and take on small genetic variations, by seed.

Herbaceous perrennials such as the Common Dog-Violet Viola riviana, survive the Winter by storing energy in modified fleshy roots. Like bulbs, they may emerge and begin to flower in Spring, pollinated by early insects. Their extending root systems also allow them to spread sideways through the soil. >> Continue, bearing right on the path through the woodland, to find a dense blackthorn thicket on your right, backed by oak and hedge maple. This is a good place to listen for woodland birds.
Blackcap
A loud, melodious, pure-toned warble, entirely free from harsh or slurred notes, often restrained at the outset but soon bursting forth in full intensity, when it gives a characteristically rippling or wavy effect.. uttered in snatches of some three to five seconds' duration with pauses of five seconds or longer.
Woodland Flowers: pencil on paper, circa 1990.
Rebeka Clark, from the archive of Stave Hill Ecological Park / Trust for Urban Ecology, archive.org