"No two villages dress their wells in exactly the same way, but here's what they do at Holymoorside. First they cut along each line of the picture with a sharp knife, then gently press small pieces of wood (called `barking') through into the clay. Once the outline is finished the picture is `coloured in'. Some villages call this state `petalling', but in Holymoorside it's called `flowering'. Why? Because rather than using individual petals, they use whole flower heads."   Source

The Bible on the Ascension

• Prophecies respecting – Psalms 24:7; 68:18; Ephesians 4:7,8
• Foretold by himself – John 6:62; 7:33; 14:28; 16:5; 20:17
• Forty days after his resurrection – Acts 1:3
• Described – Acts 1:9
• From Mount Olivet – Luke 24:50; Mark 11:1; Acts 1:12 
• While blessing his disciples – Luke 24:50

Beating the bounds (see also Rogation)

"An old custom still kept up in a few English parishes, of going around the parish boundaries on Holy Thursday [an alternative English name for Ascension – PW] or Ascension Day. The schoolchildren, accompanied by the clergymen and parish officers, walked around the boundaries, which the boys struck with peeled willow-wands. The boys were sometimes 'whipped' at intervals and water was sometimes poured on them from house windows 'to make them remember' the boundaries.

Phenology from May 20

in William Hone, The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and Co., London, 1878; 1825-26 edition online

Prognostics of Weather and Horologe of Flora

Chickweed.—When the flower expands boldly and fully, no rain will happen for four hours or upwards: if it continues in that open state, no rain will disturb the summer's day: when it half conceals its miniature flower, the day is generally showery; but if it entirely shuts up, or veils the white flower with its green mantle, let the traveller put on his great coat, and the ploughman, with his beasts of drought, expect rest from their labour.

Siberian sowthistle.—If the flowers of this plant keep open all night, rain will certainly fall the next day.

Trefoil.—The different species of trefoil always contract their leaves at the approach of a storm: hence these plants have been termed the husbandman's barometer.

African marygold.—If this plant opens not its flowers in the morning about seven o'clock, you may be sure it will rain that day, unless it thunders.

The convolvulus also, and the pimpernel anagalis arvensis, fold up their leaves on the approach of rain: the last in particular is termed the poor man's weather-glass.

Besides the above, there are several plants, especially those with compound yellow flowers, which nod, and during the whole day turn their flowers towards the sun: viz. to the east in the morning, to the south at noon, and to the west towards evening; this is very observable in the sowthistle sonchus arvensis: and it is a well-known fact, that a great part of the plants in a serene sky expand their flowers, and as it were with cheerful looks behold the light of the sun; but before rain they shut them up, as the tulip.

The flowers of the alpine whitlow grass draba alpina, the bastard feverfew parthenium, and the wintergreen trientalis, hang down in the night as if the plants were asleep, lest rain or the moist air should injure the fertilizing dust.

One species of woodsorrel shuts up or doubles its leaves before storms and tempests, but in a serene sky expands or unfolds them, so that the husbandman can pretty clearly foretell tempests from it. It is also well known that the mountain ebony bauhinia, sensitive plants, and cassia, observe the same rule.

Besides affording prognostics, many plants also fold themselves up at particular hours, with such regularity, as to have acquired the particular names from this property. The following are among the more remarkable plants of this description:—

Goatsbeard.— The flowers of both species of tragopogon open in the morning at the approach of the sun, and without regard to the state of the weather regularly shut about noon. Hence it is generally known in the country by the name of go to bed at noon.

The princesses' leaf, or four o-clock flower, in the Malay Islands, is an elegant shrub so called by the natives, because their ladies are fond of the grateful odour of its white leaves. It takes its generic name from its quality of opening its flowers at four in the evening, and not closing them in the morning till the same hour returns, when they again expand in the evening at the same hour. Many people transplant them from the woods into their gardens, and use them as a dial or a clock, especially in cloudy weather.

The tamarind tree parkinsonia, the nipplewort lapsana communis, the water lily nymphaea, the marygolds calendulae, the bastard sensitive plant aeschynomene, and several others of the diadelphia class, in serene weather, expand their leaves in the daytime, and contract them during the night. According to some botanists, the tamarind-tree enfolds within its leaves the flowers or fruit every night, in order to guard them from cold or rain.

The flower of the garden lettuce, which is in a vertical plane, opens at seven o'clock, and shuts at ten.

A species of serpentine aloe, without prickles, whose large and beautiful flowers exhale a strong odour of the vanilla during the time of its expansion, which is very short, is cultivated in the imperial garden at Paris. It does not blow till towards the month of July, and about five o'clock in the evening, at which time it gradually opens its petals, expands them, droops, and dies. By ten o'clock the same night, it is totally withered, to the great astonishment of the spectators, who flock in crowds to see it. 

The cerea, a native of Jamaica and Vera Cruz, expands an exquisitely beautiful coral flower, and emits a highly fragrant odour, for a few hours in the night, and then closes to open no more. The flower is nearly a foot in diameter; the inside of the calyx, of a splendid yellow; and the numerous petals are of a pure white. It begins to open about seven or eight o'clock in the evening, and closes before sunrise in the morning.

The flower of the dandelion possesses very peculiar means of sheltering itself from the heat of the sun, as it closes entirely whenever the heat becomes excessive. It has been observed to open, in summer, at half an hour after five in the morning, and to collect its petals towards the centre about nine o'clock.

Linnæus has enumerated forty-six flowers, which possess this kind of sensibility: he divides them into three classes.—1. Meteoric flowers, which less accurately observe the hour of folding, but are expanded sooner or later according to the cloudiness, moisture, or pressure of the atmosphere. 2. Tropical flowers, that open in the morning and close before evening every day, but the hour of their expanding becomes earlier or later as the length of the day increases or decreases. 3. Equinoctial flowers, which open at a certain and exact hour of the day, and for the most part close at another determinate hour.