This morning I made my annual pilgrimage to see what I think might be the only "wild" Winter Aconites in Glasgow. The site, which is in a small patch of deciduous woodland, has definitely deteriorated over the past year with large patches of grass encroaching on the woodland floor where the plants are. Many of the trees in the wood where the colony is located are dead or dying (judging by the number of fallen branches all over the site) and I suspect that the resulting thinning of the canopy (and possibly the recent mild weather) has allowed the grasses to gain a foothold. Today, plenty of plants were pushing up through the leaf litter and a few had already opened their leaves (although the flowers were still closed). However I do fear for the future of the colony as it is only about two square metres in size and it would not take much to wipe it out completely. The main threats would appear to be the encroachment of rough grass, the possibility of one or more trees falling onto the plants and the potential for the plants to be found and dug up. I was thinking about contacting the Diversity Officer for Glasgow City Council to see if anything could be done to protect the colony - or even to translocate some of the plants to other, less-threatened sites.