AS the frost and snow of the New Year period melt, the first green leaves to be seen in the woody areas of Habberley Valley are thoseof the small and unobtrusive plant called dog's mercury.

It grows no more than 30cms tall, in large numbers and can be found in the shady woods around the base of Ridgestone Rock in Habberley Valley.

Here, the dog's mercury produces a lush carpet of deep green at a time of year when most of the nature reserve is still shrouded in the drab shades of winter.

Within the next few days the dog's mercury will start to flower. However, this spectacle is easily missed as the flowers are very small - less than 5mm across and are also coloured green.

At such a cold time of year, and with such unattractive flowers you may wonder what sort of creature they hope to attract to effect pollination.

There are now certainly bees around but scarcely any other insects and the flowers are not attractive enough to draw the attention of birds.

On a walk through Habberley you will encounter one insect at this time of year however - the winter gnat.

This insect bobs up and down in small clouds, particularly on sunny mornings and around dusk and it is this that the dog's mercury attracts as its agent for pollination.

The small flowers produce a rather odorous, festering smell that draws these gnats to them.

This can make it rather unpleasant walk into Habberley's shadier woods at this time of year.

The name "dogs mercury" is also an unusual one and you might imagine that it stems from its rather unpleasant odour, but its origins go back into herbal lore.

Dog's mercury bears some resemblance to a widely foraged and even deliberately grown crop that at that time was widely known as mercury, but is now more commonly known as Good King Henry.

The word "dog" was often used as a prefix to highlight the fact that a plant was oisonous.

It may well be that in bygone times poorer folk emerging from bleak winter saw these lush green leaves as an easy and welcome meal and ate the dog's mercury.

This would have been unfortunate, as it is poisonous and even in modern times has been responsible for poisonings.

To try and help people distinguish the potentially dangerous plant it is, it came to be known as "dogs mercury"'.