A LEADING wildflower conservation charity is asking people to show love for the environment on Mothering Sunday by choosing to adopt a wild flower for their mothers instead of offering a bunch of imported flowers.

In the past, it was a simple bunch of wild flowers which children gathered from country lanes for their mothers as they walked home from their lives as domestic servants or apprentices on the fourth Sunday of Lent.

This year, Salisbury-based Plantlife International is urging families to adopt a flower and help conserve those wildflowers which were traditionally given.

Samantha Lane from Plantlife said: "Adopt-a-Flower is a simple way of doing something important on Mothering Sunday. A bunch of imported flowers is one option for Mothering Sunday, but the environmental impact of the cut flower industry is alarming. By supporting Plantlife's work to conserve wild plants and flowers, Adopt-a-Flower is guaranteed to put a smile on your mum's face and actively help to conserve the wild flowers which have traditionally been given on Mothering Sunday."

The charity offers a choice of six gorgeous flowers to adopt and each adoption comes with a personalised certificate, newsletter and a collection of exclusive postcards featuring the chosen flowers, all for £1.50 a month.

The choice of wildflowers includes the cornflower, once abundant in cornfields in mid summer but now seen only scattered in natural sites due to intensive farming.

The Deptford Pink is facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. This wayside flower with its star-like blooms resembles cottage garden favourite Sweet William.

Then there is Chamomile, with its apple-scented leaves and daisy-like flowers, which is found increasingly rarely in grassland and cliff-tops. Or Twinflower, with its twin pink and white bells nodding on the slenderest stalk - this is down to just isolated populations in the Highlands of Scotland.

Irish Lady's-tresses, a native, wild orchid with creamy-white flowers spiralling up its stem is a priority for international conservation because of the importance of the UK population.

Finally, Early Gentian, with its spikes of plum-coloured flowers, grows only in the UK.

It is one of only 14 British species listed on the Berne Convention. For more information and to adopt a flower, visit www.plantlife.org.uk or call 01722 342730.