What are you, little weird purple flowers?

[bunn]

I found a lot of these in the woods down near the Tamar Bridge on the Devon side of the river, and I've never seen them before. They had a slight scent. I thought they were crocusses at first from a distance, but they have weird hooks on the flowers, and the growth habit wasn't quite crocussy when you look at them close up either.

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Purple toothwort?

http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:662042-1

[bunn.livejournal.com]

YES! That is it! What a very weird little plant. The parasitism thing would explain why I've never noticed it before, too - presumably most of the year it's underground, and perhaps I havent' walked past that way just as it was flowering before - or maybe I did, and just didn't look close enough to see that it wasn't crocuses...