Image

Pansy Seed Proliferation

Text
   
Pansy seeds are proliferated via ballochory, or ballistic dispersal. The pod containing the seeds dries quickly, shrinking and pushing the seeds into the air and onto the surrounding soil.

Source


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0P3mx_lxY
Image

Toxicity Indicator

Text

Some hybrids of the Purple Mountian Pansy change colour as they absorb particles of lead. As the splant  more metal, uptake its purple petals deepen in hue. Across the landscapes of North East England, the toxicity of the soil can be read in these violet signals, their colour saturating in step with contamination.

Sources

Image

Purple Mountain Pansy

Identifier

Viola Lutea

Date of Entry

16/07/2008

Coordinates

53.471189, -2.330893

Location Description

Verge near Cargill,
Cumbria

Author

James Barton

Author Notes

The pansy was found around a group of sphagnum moss near a brook

Source

N/A
Image

Purple Pansy

Identifier

Viola Lutea

Date of Entry

16/07/2008

Coordinates

53.471189, -2.330893

Location Description

Verge near Cargill,
Cumbria

Author

James Barton

Author Notes

The pansy was found around a group of sphagnum moss near a brook

Source

N/A

Image

Mountain Pansy

Identifier

Viola Lutea

Date of Entry

16/07/2008

Coordinates

53.471189, -2.330893

Location Description

Verge near Cargill,
Cumbria

Author

James Barton

Author Notes

The pansy was found around a group of sphagnum moss near a brook

Source

N/A
Name

Purple 

Identifier

Viola Lutea

Date of Entry

16/07/2008

Coordinates

53.471189, -2.330893

Location Description

Verge near Cargill,
Cumbria

Author

James Barton

Author Notes

The pansy was found around a group of sphagnum moss near a brook

Source

N/A
Image

Kinship - Mine Banner during the Durham Miners’ Gala

Text       

The banner centres a 10:1 elevation of a Purple Mountain Pansy emerging from its spoil substrate. Layered across the flower are enlarged microscope scans: a petal epidermal cell at 5000:1, a cut-through of root tendril at 500:1, and a cross-section of mycorrhizal hyphae at 50,000:1. These images trace the passage of lead through the pansy and its multispecies networks, following its uptake from contaminated soil via symbiotic fungal associations, into the plant body and ultimately the petal. 

As more metal is absorbed, the petal’s colour deepens - a visible saturation of toxicity. Within its tissues, lead is chelated: molecular rings bind and stabilise the heavy metal in a non-reactive form. The chelation compound structure is printed directly atop the petal. 

The flower drawing is overlaid onto a topographic map tracing the rivers that flow from Nenthead to the northeast coast and the distribution of pansies across the region. Each location is embroidered with thread, dyed using pigments extracted from pansies gathered at that site, and sewn incrementally over the course of a year. The colours shift from deep damson in areas around the mine - where lead concentrations are highest - toward pale lavender at the coast, tracking the dissipation of metal toxicity through the landscape. These threads, dyed with the flowers themselves, act as material witnesses to the contamination seep across the region. Around the border, a tonal key aligns each colour with its corresponding pansy image, map location, measured lead levels in topsoil, and a Pantone hue reference.

Together, they form a spectrum of metallic toxicity and floral resilience.

Location

Old Elvet Street, Durham
Durham Miners’ Gala

Date of Entry

2024

Author

Max Cooper-Clark

Medium

Photograph

Sources

https://maxcooperclark.com
Image

Kinship - Mine Banner

Text

Some bodies, however, defy this extractive toxicity. Deadly to most more-than-humans, the Purple Mountain Pansy flourishes on lead-inundated soils. It exists in a metallic symbiosis with the rhizosphere, where lead saturates its roots and stem and builds in the epidermal cells of growing buds.

Anthocyanins, pigments in the petals, however, form a chemical architecture embracing lead molecules in a nontoxic assemblage. This process also turns the flowers purple. Across the landscape, toxicity can be read with these violet signs, whose intensity increases with metal concentration. 

Metallic metabolism within the plant disobeys the toxicity of lead. The deathly residue of extraction—lead particles once considered waste—does not progress on its continuum of wasting bodies. Instead, pansy and pollutant create a resilient and queer entanglement, a lead-loving flower, that flourishes beyond the supposed end of the mine’s productive life.

Through the pansy, contamination becomes, rather, a companion.  

Location

North Pennines Lead Mines
 
Date of Entry

2024

Author

Max Cooper-Clark

Dimenions

150cm x 150cm

Medium

Charcoal, pansy dyes, paint, acetone transfer, archival photographs and metal thread on fabric 

Sources

https://maxcooperclark.com

Bertrand Pourrut, Muhammad Shahid, Camille Dumat, Peter Winterton and Eric Pinelli, “Lead Uptake, Toxicity, and Detoxification in Plants,” Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 213 (2011):113–36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9860-6_4.

Sadegh Hosseinniaee, Mohammad Jafari, Ali Tavili, Salman Zare and Giovanna Cappai, “Chelate Facilitated Phytoextraction of PB, CD, and Zn from a Lead–Zinc Mine Contaminated Soil by Three Accumulator Plants,” Scientific Reports 13:1 (December 1, 2023),
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-48666-5.

Kathryn Yusoff, “Queer Coal: Genealogies in/of the Blood,” philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2015.a608468.
Image

Kinship - Mine Banner during the Durham Miners’ Gala

Text       

During the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike, as Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Government removed benefits for striking families, hunger was weaponised to enforce a return to extraction.

In an act of collective resistance, spaces were reappropriated by women, as an ecology of soup kitchens and community halls. In these commoned sites, pansies - once shared by witches and wisewomen as medicine across the landscape fissured by mining - were served in restorative broths. Ingested, bodies were nourished by the antioxidants harboured in the petals.

This highly local solidarity was nourished across social and cultural boundaries. Ingredients for soups in some pits were sponsored by queer activist groups, such as Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, organising “Pits and Perverts” fundraising parties in London. A form of deterritorialized kinship emerged between the urban centres of the South and the mine-town peripheries in the North.

Date of Entry

1984

Author

Max Cooper-Clark

Medium

Photograph

Sources

Alan Booth and Roger Smith, “The Irony of the Iron Fist: Social Security and the Coal Dispute 1984–85,” Journal of Law and Society 12:3 (1985): 365–74, https://doi.org/10.2307/1410129.

Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (London, UK: Penguin Books, 2021).

Mike Jackson, “Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners,” Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, 2024, http://lgsm.org/our-history/228-lesbians-and-gays-support-the-miners

Image

Kinship - Mine Banner

Text

XX
   
Date of Entry

1910

Author

 Ann Macbeth

Dimenions

2220mm x 2635 mm

Medium

Linen, Silk, Cotton

Sources


www.londonmuseum.org.uk/bbbbbbb/v/object
Sadegh Hosseinniaee, Mohammad Jafari, Ali Tavili, Salman Zare and Giovanna Cappai, “Chelate Facilitated Phytoextraction of PB, CD, and Zn from a Lead–Zinc Mine Contaminated Soil by Three Accumulator Plants,” Scientific Reports 13:1 (December 1, 2023),
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-48666-5.

Kathryn Yusoff, “Queer Coal: Genealogies in/of the Blood,” philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2015.a608468.
WSPU Holloway Prisoners Banner XX 2220mm x 2635 mm Linen, Silk, Cotton philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, 
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Image

WSPU Holloway Prisoners Banner

Text

This banner displays the names of several women who went on hunger strike while imprisoned in HMP Holloway. It was created by Ann Macbeth, head of the embroidery department at the Glasgow School of Art, who was later imprisoned in 1912 for militant activities - the same year as Mabel ‘Pansy’ Tuke. Both women endured hunger strikes and were subjected to force-feeding by prison guards.
 
Date of Entry

1910

Author

Ann Macbeth

Dimenions

2220 mm x 2635 mm

Medium

Linen, Silk, Cotton

Source

www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-91239/wspu-holloway-prisoners/
Image

WSPU Holloway Prisoners Banner held aloft during 'From Prison to Citizenship' procession

Text

Ann Macbeth’s textile was paraded during the Prisoners’ Pageant in 1910, alongside hundreds of women who had been imprisoned in HMP Holloway. This protest was part of the Great Procession of Women, a demonstration supporting the Conciliation Bill that was being debated in Parliament.

Date of Entry

18th June 1910

Author

H. Searjeant

Dimenions

136 mm x 86 mm

Medium

Photograph

Source

www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-453186/wspu-from-prison-to-citizenship-procession/
Image

Kinship - Mine Banner

Text

XX
   
Date of Entry

1910

Author

 Ann Macbeth

Dimenions

2220mm x 2635 mm

Medium

Linen, Silk, Cotton

Sources


www.londonmuseum.org.uk/bbbbbbb/v/object
Sadegh Hosseinniaee, Mohammad Jafari, Ali Tavili, Salman Zare and Giovanna Cappai, “Chelate Facilitated Phytoextraction of PB, CD, and Zn from a Lead–Zinc Mine Contaminated Soil by Three Accumulator Plants,” Scientific Reports 13:1 (December 1, 2023),
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-48666-5.

Kathryn Yusoff, “Queer Coal: Genealogies in/of the Blood,” philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2015.a608468.
WSPU Holloway Prisoners Banner XX 2220mm x 2635 mm Linen, Silk, Cotton philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, 
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Image

Mabel ‘Pansy’ Tuke and Emmeline Pankhurst in their office at the WSPU's London headquarters
 
Date of Entry

1910 or 1911

Author

-

Dimenions

-

Source

https://womanandhersphere.com/2015/10/05/suffrage-storiescollecting-suffrage-countdown-to-12-october-and-release-of-the-film-suffragettemrs-pankhurst-in-her-clements-inn-office/
Image

Mabel ‘Pansy’ Tuke and Emmeline Pankhurst in their office at the WSPU's London headquarters

Date of Entry

1909

Author

-

Dimenions

184 mm x 150 mm

Medium

Photograph

Source

www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-292204/suffragettes-mrs-pankhurst-and-mrs-tuke/
Image

Mabel Tuke at a WSPU Procession      

Date of Entry

1910

Author

-

Dimenions

-

Medium

Photograph

Source

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/45649292091
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Image

Heartsease

Text

Pansies, once commonly known as “heartsease”, have a long history intertwined with communal healing. For centuries, wise women - village healers and leaders who would later be hunted as witches - shared the flower’s numerous medicinal properties. Different parts of the plant were fermented, eaten, absorbed, osmosed, and inhaled, to relieve respiratory issues, reduce inflammation, and treat skin conditions. 
 
Date of Entry

1597

Author

John Gerard 

Source

John Gerard, Generall Historie of Plantes, 1597.
https://archive.org/details/mobot31753000817749/page/703/mode/1up?view=theater
Image

Heartsease

Text

Pansies, once commonly known as “heartsease”, have a long history intertwined with communal healing. For centuries, wise women - village healers and leaders who would later be hunted as witches - shared the flower’s numerous medicinal properties. Different parts of the plant were fermented, eaten, absorbed, osmosed, and inhaled, to relieve respiratory issues, reduce inflammation, and treat skin conditions. 

Date of Entry

1660

Author

Nicolas Robert

Source

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/rrjzbnsj/images?id=swgg4d6m
Image

Kinship - Mine Banner

Text

XX
   
Date of Entry

1910

Author

 Ann Macbeth

Dimenions

2220mm x 2635 mm

Medium

Linen, Silk, Cotton

Sources


www.londonmuseum.org.uk/bbbbbbb/v/object
Sadegh Hosseinniaee, Mohammad Jafari, Ali Tavili, Salman Zare and Giovanna Cappai, “Chelate Facilitated Phytoextraction of PB, CD, and Zn from a Lead–Zinc Mine Contaminated Soil by Three Accumulator Plants,” Scientific Reports 13:1 (December 1, 2023),
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-48666-5.

Kathryn Yusoff, “Queer Coal: Genealogies in/of the Blood,” philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2015.a608468.
WSPU Holloway Prisoners Banner XX 2220mm x 2635 mm Linen, Silk, Cotton philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, 
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Image

Purple Mountain Pansy Hybridisation

Text

Purple mountain pansies - Viola Lutea - can hybridise with nearby Viola species during cross-pollination. Some of these hybrid pansies in the North East of England can indicate the presence of metallic soils, turning deeper shades of purple with higher concentrations of lead in the ground. 

Source

https://www.northpennines.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OREsome-Botanical-survey-Middle-Greenlaw-site-dossier.pdf
Image

Purple Mountain Pansy Hybridisation

Text

Purple mountain pansies - Viola Lutea - can hybridise with nearby Viola species during cross-pollination. Some of these hybrid pansies in the North East of England can indicate the presence of metallic soils, turning deeper shades of purple with higher concentrations of lead in the ground. 

Source

https://www.northpennines.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OREsome-Botanical-survey-Middle-Greenlaw-site-dossier.pdf
Image

Purple Mountain Pansy Hybridisation

Text

Purple mountain pansies - Viola Lutea - can hybridise with nearby Viola species during cross-pollination. Some of these hybrid pansies in the North East of England can indicate the presence of metallic soils, turning deeper shades of purple with higher concentrations of lead in the ground. 

Source

https://www.northpennines.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OREsome-Botanical-survey-Middle-Greenlaw-site-dossier.pdf
Image

Kinship - Mine Banner

Text

XX
   
Date of Entry

1910

Author

 Ann Macbeth

Dimenions

2220mm x 2635 mm

Medium

Linen, Silk, Cotton

Sources


www.londonmuseum.org.uk/bbbbbbb/v/object
Sadegh Hosseinniaee, Mohammad Jafari, Ali Tavili, Salman Zare and Giovanna Cappai, “Chelate Facilitated Phytoextraction of PB, CD, and Zn from a Lead–Zinc Mine Contaminated Soil by Three Accumulator Plants,” Scientific Reports 13:1 (December 1, 2023),
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-48666-5.

Kathryn Yusoff, “Queer Coal: Genealogies in/of the Blood,” philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2015.a608468.
WSPU Holloway Prisoners Banner XX 2220mm x 2635 mm Linen, Silk, Cotton philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, 
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Image

Purple Mountain Pansy Hybridisation

Text

Purple mountain pansies - Viola Lutea - can hybridise with nearby Viola species during cross-pollination. Some of these hybrid pansies in the North East of England can indicate the presence of metallic soils, turning deeper shades of purple with higher concentrations of lead in the ground. 

Source

https://www.northpennines.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OREsome-Botanical-survey-Middle-Greenlaw-site-dossier.pdf






Image

Kinship - Mine Banner




Text






XX

 


 


Date of Entry



1910



Author




 Ann Macbeth







Dimenions



2220mm x 2635 mm





Medium



Linen, Silk, Cotton









Sources








www.londonmuseum.org.uk/bbbbbbb/v/object
Sadegh Hosseinniaee, Mohammad Jafari, Ali Tavili, Salman Zare and Giovanna Cappai, “Chelate Facilitated Phytoextraction of PB, CD, and Zn from a Lead–Zinc Mine Contaminated Soil by Three Accumulator Plants,” Scientific Reports 13:1 (December 1, 2023),
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-48666-5.

Kathryn Yusoff, “Queer Coal: Genealogies in/of the Blood,” philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2015.a608468.







WSPU Holloway Prisoners Banner




 XX







2220mm x 2635 mm



Linen, Silk, Cotton philoSOPHIA 5:2 (June 2015): 203–29, 
Image

Purple Mountain Pansy Hybridisation

Text

Purple mountain pansies - Viola Lutea - can hybridise with nearby Viola species during cross-pollination. Some of these hybrid pansies in the North East of England can indicate the presence of metallic soils, turning deeper shades of purple with higher concentrations of lead in the ground. 

Source

https://www.northpennines.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OREsome-Botanical-survey-Middle-Greenlaw-site-dossier.pdf






Image

WSPU Holloway Prisoners Banner






Text







XX




 


Date of Entry



1910



Author






Ann Macbeth







Dimenions







2220mm x 2635 mm





Medium







Linen, Silk, Cotton




Sources




www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-91239/wspu-holloway-prisoners/








Image

Purple Mountain Pansy Hybridisation

Text

Purple mountain pansies - Viola Lutea - can hybridise with nearby Viola species during cross-pollination. Some of these hybrid pansies in the North East of England can indicate the presence of metallic soils, turning deeper shades of purple with higher concentrations of lead in the ground. 

Source

https://www.northpennines.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OREsome-Botanical-survey-Middle-Greenlaw-site-dossier.pdf
Image

Purple Mountain Pansy Hybridisation

Text

Purple mountain pansies - Viola Lutea - can hybridise with nearby Viola species during cross-pollination. Some of these hybrid pansies in the North East of England can indicate the presence of metallic soils, turning deeper shades of purple with higher concentrations of lead in the ground. 

Source

https://www.northpennines.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OREsome-Botanical-survey-Middle-Greenlaw-site-dossier.pdf
Image

Purple Mountain Pansy Hybridisation

Text

Purple mountain pansies - Viola Lutea - can hybridise with nearby Viola species during cross-pollination. Some of these hybrid pansies in the North East of England can indicate the presence of metallic soils, turning deeper shades of purple with higher concentrations of lead in the ground. 

Source

https://www.northpennines.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OREsome-Botanical-survey-Middle-Greenlaw-site-dossier.pdf
Image

Marching Route Napkin

Text

A silk handkerchief depicts the marching route for the Prisoners’ Pageant in 1910. It is adorned with printed Purple Pansies, as well as portraits of key Suffragettes, including Mabel ‘Pansy’ Tuke.

Date  of Entry

1910

Author

Sarah Burgess

    -->  
Image

Mabel ‘Pansy’ Tuke

Text

“I was born two houses down from where Mabel ‘Pansy’ Tuke passed into memory. No plaque settles amongst the pebbledash to commemorate her presence, only the damson flowers weeding the unkempt lawn. Plucking them as a child, I would rest the petals as morning offerings to the pavement, hoping that violet flourishes grew upon my return from school.”  
 
Mabel Tuke (b.1871) was the Joint Honorary Secretary of the Women's Social and Political Union from 1908. Together with Emmeline Pankhurst, she threw a stone through one of 10 Downing Street’s windows on 1 March 1912, and was subsequently imprisoned in HMP Holloway. Pankhurst had given her the nickname ‘Pansy’ after the violet flowers Mabel was said to hand out at Suffrage rallies - and to striking miners just days before her incarceration. She died in Neville’s Cross, Durham in 1962.

She is depicted here in a silver gelatin print by Christine Broom in 1909. Metal mines in the North East of England, close to where Mabel passed away, often gleaned silver from seams of Galena ore. Some of this metal was used in the production of photography prints.

Her portrait hangs in Lea Inn in the North Pennine lowlands.

Date  of Entry

1909

Author

Christine Broom    

 
Image

Pansy Project 

Text
   
The Pansy Project is an ongoing public artwork that marks sites of homophobic and transphobic abuse with a single planted pansy. Each flower is titled after the specific incident and recorded online, creating a record of dismissed acts of anti-LGBTQ+ hostility. The project was initiated in 2005 by artist Paul Harfleet and has since seen over 300 pansies planted in cities worldwide. Several are planted in the North East of England. 

Date  of Entry

-

Coordinates

54.866898, -1.374736

Location Description

End of Burdon Lane, Ryhope

Author

Paul Harfleet    

Source

https://thepansyproject.com/locations/
 
Image

Embroidered Suffragette Textile

Text
   
Sewn in HMP Holloway byJanie Terrero, this fabric panel holds the signatures of women imprisoned for window smashing in March 1912, alongside Mabel ‘Pansy’ Tuke and Emmeline Pankhurst. Many of these women joined the hunger strike and were subjected to violent force-feeding by prison guards.

Purple Pansies ring the centre of the silk.

Date  of Entry

1912

Author

Janie Terrero

Dimenions

456 mm x 520 mm

Medium

Photograph, Silk, Embroidery

Source

Image

“When you eat together, you stick together!” A scene from Ken Loach’s 2023 Film, The Old Oak

Date  of Entry

2023

Author

Ken Loach

Source

The Old Oak, 2023, Ken Loach, Studio Canal
Image

Purple Mountain Pansy - Metallophytes

Text

Purple pansies (Viola lutea) are often flourish in soils contaminated with lead, especially around former mining sites and industrial areas where heavy metals persist. Internationally rare, they predominate in the North Pennines and Lowlands of Durham County. 

Sources

https://teesdalemercury.co.uk/country-life/flora-and-fauna-a-flower-youd-associate-with-heavy-metal/

Bertrand Pourrut, Muhammad Shahid, Camille Dumat, Peter Winterton and Eric Pinelli, “Lead Uptake, Toxicity, and Detoxification in Plants,” Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 213 (2011):113–36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9860-6_4.

Sadegh Hosseinniaee, Mohammad Jafari, Ali Tavili, Salman Zare and Giovanna Cappai, “Chelate Facilitated Phytoextraction of PB, CD, and Zn from a Lead–Zinc Mine Contaminated Soil by Three Accumulator Plants,” Scientific Reports 13:1 (December 1, 2023),
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-48666-5.
Image

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi

Text

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form a symbiotic relationship with Viola lutea by colonizing its roots. These fungi improve the plant’s resistance to lead toxicity by binding and immobilizing lead ions in the soil, reducing their uptake into the plant. AMF also enhance nutrient and water absorption, boosting the plant’s overall health and stress tolerance. Additionally, they help Viola lutea by stimulating antioxidant release to protect cells from lead-induced damage.

Source

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0176161711001465

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653513008813
Image

Strike Soup

Text

During the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike, some towns served Purple Mountain Pansies on broths served in communal soup kitchens. Viola Lutea, long used as a natural treatment for diabetes, asthma, lung diseases, and fatigue, are high in antioxidants and bioactive compounds.

Date  of Entry

-

Author
-
Image

Calaminarian grassland

Text

Calaminarian grasslands are a rare habitat found in the UK on soils rich in heavy metals - often from old mining sites. Frequently occurring on infertile, toxic terrain, these grasslands support specialist “metallophyte” plants like spring sandwort, alpine pennycress, thrift, and bladder campion, uncommon mosses and lichens, and the Purple Mountain Pansy. The toxic soils limit competition, allowing only adapted species to thrive. Despite their unassuming appearance, these grasslands are of high conservation value, representing unique ecosystems found in just a few localised areas across the UK.

Source

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/habitats/grassland/calaminarian-grassland
Image

St Hilda Colliery Lodge Banner
with a border of Purple Pansies 

Date  of Entry

9th July 2022
Image

Two Drag Queens from Dawdon parade in front of the County Hotel during the 1971 Durham Miners’ Gala

Text

 “In November 1984, a dinner was held in the Miners’ Welfare Hall to celebrate the strength and resilience of the community. A local drag artist from Darlington assumed regional characters on stage, invoking both the Lambton Worm and Bob Paisley. They finished the act in a dress adorned with appliqué nettles and pansies, exclaiming to the crowd ‘’Those that eat together…’’, followed by the rooms’ response ‘’stick together.

Drag has always been part of life within mining towns and villages in the North East of England, as both entertainment and expression. 

During the 1930s, drag acts became known as Pansy Performers.

Date  of Entry

17th July 1971

Author

Sunderland Echo
Image

Easington Colliery Soup Kitchen Staff during the 1926 General Strike

Date  of Entry

1926

Author

-

Medium

Photograph

https://www.stuartbrisley.com/pages/27/70s/Works/Artist_Project_Peterlee___History_Within_Living_Memory/page:27
Image

Cyclotides

Text

Purple Mountain Pansies contain numerous means of flourishing on toxic mining soils. One such method is through the use of cyclotides, protein chains that can bind heavy metals such as lead and zinc inside the plant cells. By doing this, they help trap and neutralise these otherwise-toxic particles, preventing them from damaging the plant, and allowing the Pansies to persist on contaminated soils.

Recent research suggests that these cycoltides could be used in the treatment of HIV.

Sources

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-69018-x

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11030-025-11224-4
Image

Chelation

Text

Viola lutea can bind lead ions to form a stable molecule via chelation. This process traps the lead particles, preventing them from damaging the plant’s cells. By chelating lead, the plant reduces its toxicity and protects itself from heavy metal stress.

Source

https://agro.icm.edu.pl/agro/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-article-00f21542-6aea-489f-bd2f-48c08e18186b
Purple Mountain Pansy