THROUGHOUT the summer, parts of our countryside will be decorated with tall and stunning plants bearing bright pink flowers which are remarkably like lilac. They seem to have a strong preference for growing in the most unlikely places, such as cliff faces, rocks, quarries, bank sides, dry pathways, wasteland and walls, whether dry-stone or otherwise.

The stems are straight and strong with a distinct bluish-green hue, and the large leaves extend in pairs from each side of the stem. The leaves are broad in the centre but reach a point at the tip and they appear to emerge from the stem without stalks of their own.

In some instances, the leaves merge with one another around the plant stem and in a few cases, the leaves might have serrated edges. More usually, however, the edges of the leaves are smooth.

The plant is sometimes called the American lilac, but its origins are not in the United States; rather, it originated in southern and central Europe, around the Mediterranean.

It is, of course, the red valerian, now plentiful throughout most of England, and very common in the south-west. Whether this is a cultivated garden plant or a weed is a matter for debate - it seems to be a cultivated plant which has easily adapted to the life of a weed - but the red valerian can be found both in the wild and in gardens, especially among rockeries or on dry footpaths.

The general opinion is that it was introduced to this country from the Mediterranean region sometime during the sixteenth century. The famous English herbalist and surgeon, John Gerard (1545-1612) mentions the red valerian in his Herball which was published in 1597. He said the red valerian was a great ornament in his garden, but added the flower was not then common in England.

Within a couple of centuries, however, it had become very widespread and popular among gardeners, particularly as it was able to flourish in walls and other places where few plants could thrive. In 1778, for example, William Hudson wrote his Flora Anglica in which he recorded the plant flourishing on old tumbledown walls in Devon and Cornwall, but it took several more years before it spread further north.

It does not appear to have been regarded as a truly wild plant until 1890. Some of those early observers believed the red valerian needed the space that can be found in the wild; some felt that conditions in domesticated gardens were too restrictive because the red valerian loves being blown about by the wind and appears to thrive on adverse conditions. No doubt its Mediterranean ancestery is partially responsible, the plant having had to fight for survival in the dry, waterless and hot conditions of its original homeland.

The mass of tiny flowers on each plant, so like lilac or very similar to the buddleia, attracts butterflies and other long-tongued insects in large numbers which suck the nectar from deep within the flower, and it is this attention which pollinates them. Eventually, the flowers ripen to form tiny seeds on hairy parachutes, and these are distributed by the wind.

Although Gerard showed a keen interest in the red valerian, it seems the flower has little value as a herb. Its roots are perhaps the most beneficial, with Gerard recording they had an "excellent sweete savour"; both the Italians and French make a soup from the roots and in some countries, the young fresh leaves are mixed with lettuce and made into salads, usually after boiling to remove the rather bitter taste and then mixing them with butter.

Although, as its name suggests, the flowers of this plant are red, there is a white variety which is not uncommon, but throughout the country the plant, in both colours, has an amazing variety of local names. Here are just a few: bouncing betsy, kiss-me-love, pretty baby, old woman's needlework, red money, soldier boys, bloody butcher, gipsy maids, kissing kind, drunken sailor, ground laylock and even good neighbours. There are many more.

In recording the red valerian, however, one should not overlook its cousin, known simply as valerian or perhaps the common valerian. Its flowers can appear in both red and white and these are very similar to those of its red cousin, except they form a head on the plant which is rather like those of the wild parsley family. Indeed, the white variety of the common valerian can be easily overlooked because of its similarity to the parsley group of flowers. Its leaves are serrated with several leaflets upon each leaf-stem, but this plant has value as a herb.

Juice from the roots is well known as a sedative, but when they are dried they produce a smell rather like new leather and it seems this is very attractive to cats and other animals. They were sometimes used to keep clothes fresh too!

IN one of my newspapers a couple of weeks ago, there was a photograph of a group of ramblers wading through a field of growing wheat near Boroughbridge, apparently to highlight the problems of blocked footpaths. The Ramblers' Association is reportedly angry because some footpaths in North Yorkshire are badly maintained - and with about 5,000 miles of public footpaths within the county, it is inevitable that some become temporarily blocked or overgrown, but it all means that someone must keep them clear so that these people can enjoy their leisure.

The county council has said that an extra £200,000 has been allocated this year for maintenance of public footpaths, and the number of staff responsible for this has been increased from eight to 12.

That means we are all paying for leisure-time ramblers to exercise their "rights" and one must wonder in what other ways ratepayers are being forced to club together so that people like ramblers can enjoy themselves. Personally, I'd rather see such ratepayers' money go towards education or the reduction of crime.

And talking of crime, by trampling down a strip of wheat in that Boroughbridge field, those ramblers must surely have caused deliberate damage to the growing crop. That is a crime known as criminal damage, vandalism in common parlance (see section one of the Criminal Damage Act 1971), and in other areas of life such behaviour cannot be justified.

Quite simply, two wrongs do not make a right. Even if the route of those ramblers was covered with growing wheat, there must have been another way of highlighting their grumbles without such causing vandalism and it would be interesting to see whether a criminal prosecution would succeed.

In similar vein, I have been sent a cutting by a reader living near Pickering in which a farmer relates how a rambler, an RSPCA official and a veterinary surgeon entered his land without his knowledge and approached a cow with a young calf. They then proceeded to treat the calf for some ailment, having been alerted to its condition by the rambler but without contacting the farmer.

The truth was that the calf had already been treated by a vet only two hours before the arrival of these interfering people, and due to the additional treatment meted out by the three trespassers, it died, leaving a distraught mother and an angry owner.

I have no means of checking the veracity of this story but it does have a ring of truth and it seems to be a sad example of the dangers of untutored members of the public wandering over private rural land.

Maybe the Ramblers' Association should do something to educate its members about country life? Better still, perhaps it should be held accountable for the actions of all ramblers, or even just its members.

TO whom does a hive of bees belong? Ownership of the structure itself is a simple matter but what about the bees which live and work within? Who owns them? Can bees be said to have an owner when they are flying wild and going about their honey-gathering exercises, or can they be stolen only when they are inside the hive?

I raise this because bee rustling is a growing crime due to the current shortage of honey. Hives full of bees are being spirited away by those wishing to capitalise upon this need so the message is clear - watch your bees and hives