192 Fun Facts About Spring Time

Which yellow spring flower do the French call 'pissenlit', or 'wet-the-bed'?

Dandelion leaves are a diuretic, hence 'pissenlit'; the English name is French too, from 'dent de lion', lion's tooth, for the jagged leaves.

In the traditional Irish calendar, spring begins on 1 February, the feast of which saint?

Saint Brigid's feast shares 1 February with the Gaelic festival of Imbolc, which marks the start of spring; families weave crosses from rushes in her name for it.

Astronomically, spring in the Northern Hemisphere concludes with the occurrence of which event?

Summer Solstice: daylight keeps lengthening all spring until this longest day, around 21 June; from then on the days shorten, even though summer has only just begun.

In which Disney film does Friend Owl warn that nearly everybody gets 'twitterpated' in the springtime?

Bambi gave English the word: the 1942 film coined 'twitterpated' for Friend Owl's speech about being lovestruck, and dictionaries now list it with that origin.

Which spring constellation contains Arcturus, the brightest star of the northern sky?

Boötes, the Herdsman: its orange giant Arcturus rises high on spring evenings and is found by following the arc of the Big Dipper's handle.

What is the primary reason our planet experiences different seasons?

The tilt of its axis, about 23.4 degrees, is what gives Earth seasons, not distance: the planet is nearest the Sun in early January, mid-winter for the north.

Which three months constitute meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere?

March, April, May: forecasters use whole calendar months because the equinox and solstice dates shift, which lets them compare a season's climate statistics cleanly from one year to the next.

What term is used for the day when daylight and night are exactly equal in length?

Equilux is the day of exactly equal daylight and night. In the north it falls a few days before the March equinox, because atmospheric refraction and the width of the solar disc give daylight a head start.

What is Japan's centuries-old custom of partying outdoors beneath blossoming cherry trees called?

Hanami, 'flower viewing', carries on after dark as yozakura, with paper lanterns hung among the trees, and the best picnic spots are claimed with ground sheets hours ahead.

Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year held each April, is known worldwide for what public activity?

Citywide water fights are Songkran's signature: the soaking symbolises cleansing at the turn of the year. The festival falls on 13 April, and UNESCO inscribed it on its intangible heritage list in December 2023.

On the eve of the Hindu festival of colours, a bonfire marks the burning of which demoness?

Holika, protected from fire in the legend, carried her nephew Prahlada onto a pyre to kill him for her brother the demon king; she burned to death instead and the devout boy came out unharmed.

In German gardening lore, the Eisheiligen or 'Ice Saints' are held to mark what?

The last expected night frosts: the saints' feast days run from 11 to 15 May, ending with 'Cold Sophia', and many gardeners hold back tender plants until they have passed.

The induction of flowering by a prolonged spell of winter cold is known to botanists as what?

Vernalization is the cold requirement for flowering: winter wheat and many biennials must sit through weeks of winter cold before they can flower, which keeps seed set in spring rather than autumn.

Apart from two bucks competing, which pairing commonly 'boxes' among hares in spring?

A female striking a male is the usual bout: a doe turns and boxes a buck who chases her too persistently, the spring antics behind the phrase 'mad as a March hare'.

The spring peeper, a tiny frog of eastern North America, calls in massed choruses often likened to what?

Sleigh bells: each male repeats one high peep, much like a chick's, and a pond full of them calling together blurs into a jingling chorus as spring begins.

The Boston Marathon is traditionally run on which Massachusetts holiday?

Patriots' Day was fixed on 19 April, the date of the first race in 1897; when the holiday moved to the third Monday of April in 1969, the marathon moved with it.

"April is the cruellest month" opens which poem of 1922?

The Waste Land is dedicated to Ezra Pound as 'il miglior fabbro', the better craftsman: his editing pared T. S. Eliot's draft to roughly half its original length.

Spring tides have nothing to do with springtime; at which lunar phases do they occur?

Spring tides come at new moon and full moon, when Sun, Moon and Earth line up (a syzygy) and the Sun's pull reinforces the Moon's. At the quarter moons they sit at right angles, giving weaker neap tides.

According to the weather proverb, March comes in like a lion and goes out like what?

A lamb: the proverb holds that a March which arrives with stormy, lion-like weather will end mild and gentle, as winter gives way to spring.

'Kid' first meant the young of which farm animal?

Goat: 'kid' came into English from Old Norse for a young goat and only later became slang for a child; 'kidnap' then joined it to 'nap', thieves' slang for snatch.

What happens to a tadpole's tail as it turns into a frog?

Absorbed into the body: the tail is never shed; it shrinks away as the legs grow and lungs take over from the gills.

The young of large deer such as moose and elk are called what, rather than fawns?

Calves: only the smaller deer have fawns; a moose or elk is a bull or a cow, as with cattle, and its young is named to match.

Monarch butterflies returning each spring lay their eggs on which plant, the only food their caterpillars eat?

Milkweed is toxic, and the caterpillars store its poisons in their bodies, so the adult butterfly's bright orange wings warn birds that it tastes foul.

The American robin's eggs are such a distinctive colour that a paint shade is named after them; which colour?

Blue: 'robin's-egg blue' is the shade, and the female alone sits on the clutch, usually about four eggs, for roughly two weeks until they hatch.

Which spring flower takes its name, via Turkish, from a Persian word for 'turban'?

Tulip and turban are the same word twice over: both reached English through Turkish 'tülbent' from Persian 'dulband'.

The daffodil, one of the first blooms of spring, is the national flower of which country?

Wales: people pin a daffodil to their coats on St David's Day, 1 March, and the flower is also the emblem of cancer charities in many countries.

Washington's Tidal Basin cherry trees arrived in 1912 as a gift from the mayor of which city?

Tokyo: Mayor Yukio Ozaki's first gift of 2,000 trees arrived in 1910 infested with insects and had to be burned, so the city sent 3,020 healthy ones two years later.

On which date do Pennsylvanians watch a groundhog named Phil to predict whether spring will come early?

February 2 is Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney: if Phil sees his shadow, winter lasts six more weeks; if he doesn't, spring is on its way.

According to the old saying, what do April showers bring?

May flowers need April rain, so the saying is practical before it is poetic; people also use it to mean good things follow hard times.

New spring leaves are green because of which pigment inside them?

Chlorophyll soaks up red and blue light to power the plant and absorbs little of the green, which is the colour we see; the carotene beneath only shows once it breaks down in autumn.

When a bee carries yellow dust from one spring flower's anther to another's stigma so seeds form, what is the process called?

Pollination only yields seeds when the grains reach a flower of the same species, and bees, beetles, butterflies, birds and bats all work as carriers. Germination is the seed sprouting afterwards.

Across Europe and Asia, in which direction do most migrating birds fly when spring arrives?

North: most migrants fly north in spring to breed in the temperate or Arctic summer, where long days give more time to find food for their chicks, then head back in autumn.

The plants behind most spring hay fever spread their pollen by what means?

Wind: trees and grasses shed clouds of small, light pollen for the breeze to carry, while showy flowers such as roses rely on insects, so their pollen rarely reaches anyone's nose.

What do dancers traditionally hold as they circle a maypole on May Day?

Ribbons: each dancer holds one fixed to the top of the pole, and as boys circle one way and girls the other, the ribbons weave into a plait down its length.

In the United States, on which day is Mother's Day celebrated?

The second Sunday in May: Anna Jarvis launched the day with a church service for her late mother in Grafton, West Virginia, then spent years fighting the card and flower trade for commercialising it.

Earth Day, when people plant trees and pick up litter, falls on which date every year?

April 22: the first Earth Day in 1970, a teach-in called by Senator Gaylord Nelson, drew some 20 million Americans, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that December.

What do black bears do in the winter den, months before emerging in spring?

Give birth to cubs: two or three arrive blind and helpless in midwinter and nurse in the den until spring, while their mother lives on the body fat she laid down before winter.

When daylight saving time begins in spring, what happens to the clocks?

They go forward one hour, so everyone loses an hour of sleep; the rhyme 'spring forward, fall back' is how people remember which way to move them.

Cinco de Mayo, on 5 May, celebrates a Mexican army victory in 1862 over soldiers from which country?

France: on 5 May 1862 an outnumbered Mexican army beat a French force at the Battle of Puebla. The day is often mistaken for Mexican Independence Day, which is 16 September.

Saint Patrick's Day, when people wear green and shamrocks, falls on which date, traditionally held to be the saint's death day?

March 17 is the traditional date of Saint Patrick's death, and legend says he used the three-leaved shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity.

During the spring festival of Passover, Jewish families eat a flat, unleavened bread called what?

Matzah is the unleavened bread of Passover: the holiday remembers the Israelites leaving Egypt in such haste that their dough had no time to rise.

The English word 'spring', for the months after winter, comes from the idea of what?

Plants springing up: the earliest form was 'springing time' in the 1300s, for the weeks when plants begin to rise; before that, the English word for these months was Lent.

What do astronomers call the point where the Sun crosses the celestial equator in March?

The First Point of Aries is the March equinox point, the zero of right ascension; precession has carried it into Pisces, but the ancient name stuck.

What season begins in the Southern Hemisphere on the March equinox?

Autumn: the seasons run in reverse south of the equator, so Australians, South Africans and Brazilians start autumn in March and spend Christmas in summer.

Which church council of AD 325 ruled that all Christians should celebrate Easter on the same day?

Nicaea wanted one Easter for the whole Church, reckoned apart from the Jewish calendar; Orthodox churches still work it out by the Julian calendar, so their Easter usually falls later than the Western one.

What is the Nowruz table display of seven symbolic items, each starting with the same Persian letter, called?

Haft-sin means 'seven S's': sprouted greens, garlic, vinegar, apple and the rest all begin with the Persian letter sin; for all its air of antiquity, scholars think the display in this form is fairly recent.

What do celebrants of Chaharshanbe Suri, held shortly before the Persian New Year, traditionally do?

They jump over bonfires on the eve of the last Wednesday before Nowruz, a symbolic purification before the new year; firecrackers and fireworks are set off the same night.

Which cherry cultivar makes up most of the trees around Washington's Tidal Basin?

Yoshino cherries ring the Tidal Basin with clouds of single white blossoms, two weeks ahead of the pink Kwanzan; every Yoshino is a clone of one original tree, spread by grafting.

By what other common name is the groundhog known?

Woodchuck is the groundhog's other everyday name; Marmota monax is a large ground squirrel of eastern North America, hence the tongue-twister about how much wood it could chuck.

On which date does the northward equinox most commonly fall at 0 degrees longitude?

The 20th: at UTC the March equinox falls on the 20th in most 21st-century years. It last fell on 21 March in 2007 and will not again until 2102.

When honeybees swarm in spring, what is the colony doing?

Splitting into two colonies is how honeybees reproduce: the bees that leave cluster nearby while scouts search for a cavity and report back, then all fly on to the new home.

Roughly how many hours long are day and night at the spring equinox?

About twelve hours each: the Sun sits over the equator at the equinox, so day and night are nearly equal everywhere, and daylight then lengthens until the summer solstice.

Which 40-day period of fasting and penance precedes Easter?

Lent's 40 days echo the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert. Advent is the run-up to Christmas, and Eastertide is the season that follows Easter rather than precedes it.

Which day of Holy Week recalls Judas agreeing to betray Jesus?

Spy Wednesday recalls Judas Iscariot's bargain with the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver; Maundy Thursday, the next day, commemorates the Last Supper.

Among which group did the Easter Bunny tradition originate?

German Lutherans: their Osterhase, or Easter Hare, began as a judge of children's behaviour, laying and hiding eggs only for the good ones, much as Santa keeps a list.

Which Ukrainian Easter egg is decorated with a wax-resist method?

A pysanka is written with a stylus of hot beeswax between dye baths, so each colour is preserved under wax; a krashanka is simply dyed one colour.

In Christian symbolism, what do Easter eggs represent?

The egg stands for the empty tomb of Jesus, its shell breaking open as the tomb did at the Resurrection; dyeing eggs red recalled the blood shed at the crucifixion.

Early Christians of which region are credited with starting the Easter egg custom?

The early Christians of Mesopotamia are credited with it, staining eggs red in memory of the blood of Christ; the custom spread through the Orthodox churches into Eastern Europe.

On which day are hot cross buns traditionally eaten in the UK?

Good Friday is their day, and superstition clings to the buns baked on it: some households kept one from one Easter to the next as a lucky charm.

Which British Easter cake is topped with eleven marzipan balls, one for each apostle except Judas?

Simnel cake began as a treat for Mothering Sunday in the middle of Lent and moved to Easter later; a second layer of marzipan is baked into the middle.

Which 8th-century writer is the only early source for Eostre, the goddess he said gave Easter its name?

Bede wrote in The Reckoning of Time that the Anglo-Saxons once called April Eosturmonath after feasts held for her, and that the old name passed to the Christian festival.

The ashes used on Ash Wednesday are traditionally made by burning what?

Palm fronds from the previous year are saved and burned to make the ashes, which are then blessed and marked on foreheads on Ash Wednesday.

Which day immediately precedes the first day of Lent?

Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, comes right before Ash Wednesday, which opens Lent; its name comes from 'shriving', confessing sins before the fast.

Holi celebrates the love between which two deities?

Radha and Krishna: in the legend dark-skinned Krishna fretted that fair Radha would not love him, and the playful face-colouring that followed is replayed in Holi's powder fights.

The daisy takes its name, Old English for 'day's eye', from which habit?

Closing its petals at night gave the daisy its name: the flower shuts at dusk and opens again in the morning, like an eye waking with the day.

In which ancient religion do the roots of Nowruz lie?

Zoroastrianism: Nowruz began among its holy days more than 3,000 years ago, outlasted Iran's conversion to Islam, and is now kept by people of many faiths.

What does the Persian word Nowruz literally mean?

New Day: Persian 'now' is new and 'ruz' is day, and the day in question is the spring equinox, 20 or 21 March, from which daylight outlasts the night.

Sizdah Bedar, the outdoor picnic that closes Nowruz, falls on which day of the new year?

The thirteenth: Sizdah Bedar means 'getting rid of thirteen', and on 13 Farvardin families picnic outdoors and throw their sprouted greens into running water.

Passover, Shavuot and which autumn festival make up Judaism's three Pilgrimage Festivals?

Sukkot completes the Shalosh Regalim, when Israelites went up to the Temple in Jerusalem; families still eat in temporary huts that recall the years of wandering in the wilderness.

Around each spring equinox, a serpent of light and shadow seems to slither down a pyramid at which ancient Mexican city?

Chichen Itza's pyramid El Castillo was a temple to the feathered serpent Kukulcán: in the late afternoon its stepped corner casts a row of triangles down one staircase, and thousands gather to watch.

Groundhog Day grew from a German weather custom that watched which animal for its shadow?

Badger: German settlers carried the shadow lore to Pennsylvania, where the groundhog was given the badger's job as forecaster.

Thingyan, a mid-April water festival, is the New Year of which country?

Myanmar: Thingyan ushers in the Burmese New Year, and people douse one another in the streets, a soaking believed to wash away the old year's bad luck and bring good fortune.

Which Roman festival has May Day been associated with?

Floralia: Rome founded these games for the flower goddess Flora around 240 BC on the advice of the Sibylline Books, held them from 28 April into May, and made them yearly in 173 BC after wind, hail and rain ruined the blossom.

Since 1890, 1 May has also been marked in many countries as a day honouring whom?

Workers: in 1889 an international congress of socialists and trade unions chose 1 May for demonstrations in support of an eight-hour day, recalling the American strikes of May 1886.

Beltane is one of four main Gaelic festivals with Samhain, Imbolc and which other?

Lughnasadh, the 1 August harvest festival named for the god Lugh, completes the four: Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain. Cattle were driven to summer pastures at Beltane.

Which English-born abbess's feast eve, 30 April, is marked by bonfires across northern Europe?

Saint Walpurga, the 8th-century English-born abbess of Heidenheim, gives Walpurgis Night its name; bonfires on 30 April were lit to ward off witches and evil spirits.

In which Canterbury Tale is the vain cock Chauntecleer tricked by a fox, on a date some read as 1 April?

The Nun's Priest's Tale dates the trick 'syn March bigan thritty dayes and two', which some read as 1 April; many scholars suspect a scribal slip for 2 May, 32 days after March ended.

Under what name was Memorial Day first observed nationally on May 30, 1868?

Decoration Day: John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic proclaimed 30 May 1868 a day for decorating the graves of Civil War dead, and the name Memorial Day took over later.

Vaisakhi is a spring harvest festival celebrated primarily in which region?

Punjab: Vaisakhi on 13 or 14 April opens the solar New Year there, and Sikhs mark it as the day in 1699 when Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa.

Where in Spain was the world's first documented tree-planting festival held, in 1594?

Mondoñedo, in Galicia, held a documented tree-planting festival in 1594 under its mayor; the first modern Arbor Day came in 1805 at Villanueva de la Sierra.

Sakura mochi, a Japanese spring sweet, is wrapped in a cherry leaf preserved in what?

Salt: the sweet is said to date from 1717, when Shinroku Yamamoto salted cherry leaves from a riverbank and wrapped them around cakes to sell at the gate of Chomeiji temple.

Which Japanese government agency issued the 'cherry blossom front' forecast until 2009?

The Japan Meteorological Agency forecast the blossom front from the 1950s until 2009; since 2010 private forecasters have done it, while the agency still records when the trees flower.

The streaked 'broken' tulips prized during the 1630s tulip mania owed their flame-like patterns to what?

A virus: the tulip breaking virus, spread by aphids, streaks the petals but also weakens the bulb, so the most coveted flowers of the mania, such as Semper Augustus, died out.

Keukenhof, where seven million spring bulbs are planted each year, has a name meaning what?

Kitchen garden: in the 15th century the land supplied game and other food to the kitchen of Teylingen Castle, home of Countess Jacoba of Bavaria; the bulb show opened in 1950.

Which phrase, literally 'shaking the house', names the spring cleaning done before Nowruz?

Khaneh tekani: in the weeks before Nowruz families scrub their homes and buy new clothes for the new year, a custom some researchers see as the root of spring cleaning.

Who choreographed the 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring?

Vaslav Nijinsky choreographed it for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes; the uproar swelled when the curtain rose on his stamping dancers, and he ended up shouting the step counts from the wings.

At which Paris theatre did The Rite of Spring premiere on 29 May 1913?

The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées had opened less than two months earlier; at the premiere, rival factions in the audience argued so loudly that the dancers could not take their cues from the orchestra.

Which composer's 1725 violin concerto 'Spring' opens with birdsong and a murmuring stream?

Vivaldi published Spring as the first of The Four Seasons, each with a sonnet, perhaps his own, describing its scenes; in the slow movement the violas imitate a goatherd's barking dog.

Which art historian first described Botticelli's painting as 'Primavera', around 1550?

Giorgio Vasari saw the painting at the Medici villa of Castello and wrote in 1550 that it showed Venus adorned by the Graces, 'denoting spring'; the title it carries today comes from that note.

In Greek myth, Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and which goddess?

Demeter, goddess of the harvest: while she grieves for Persephone in the underworld the earth lies barren, and her daughter's return each year brings the crops back.

Which bird of prey does the adult common cuckoo mimic?

The sparrowhawk: the cuckoo's barred grey underparts and flight resemble it, scaring small birds off their nests and buying the female time to lay in a host's nest.

What is the botanical genus name of the daffodil?

Narcissus shares its name with the youth of Greek myth who pined away over his own reflection, though the Greek word was also linked to narke, numbness, for the plant's narcotic properties.

The snowdrop's genus name Galanthus, which shares a Greek root with 'galaxy', means what?

Milk flower: Greek gala (milk) and anthos (flower) describe the white bloom. Snowdrop bulbs also yielded galantamine, a compound now used to treat mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.

Which bird makes the longest yearly migration of any animal?

The Arctic tern breeds around the Arctic and spends the other half of the year off Antarctica, a round trip of some 70,000 kilometres, so it lives through two summers every year.

Which cheese is chased down the slope at England's Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling each spring?

Double Gloucester: the wheel gets about a second's head start down Cooper's Hill and is almost never caught, so the first runner to reach the bottom wins it.

Which English folk dance features leg bells, sticks and handkerchiefs?

Morris dancing: its earliest English record is a 1448 payment of seven shillings from London's Goldsmiths' Company, and in 1600 the actor Will Kemp morris-danced all the way from London to Norwich.

At Qingming each spring, Chinese families traditionally do what?

Sweep ancestors' graves: on the 15th day after the spring equinox families tidy the tombs, leave food and burn incense and paper offerings, then often stay outdoors for a spring outing or picnic.

At Setsubun, the eve of spring in Japan's old calendar, what do families throw at demons?

Beans: families scatter roasted soybeans shouting 'Demons out, luck in', then each person eats a bean for every year of their age to bring good fortune.

In the traditional Chinese calendar, which 'dark birds' are said to arrive at the spring equinox?

Swallows: the first five days of Chunfen, the equinox term, are named 'the dark birds arrive' for their yearly return, and the next two five-day spans are named for thunder and lightning.

Japan's spring equinox holiday is, by law, a day for honouring what?

Nature: the 1948 holiday law makes the spring equinox a day for admiring nature and cherishing living things; honouring ancestors is the law's purpose for the autumn equinox instead.

Sham el-Nessim, a spring holiday of salted fish and coloured eggs, is celebrated in which country?

Egypt: Egyptians of every faith picnic outdoors on the Monday after Coptic Easter and eat fesikh, fermented grey mullet, despite yearly health ministry warnings about badly prepared fish.

Zurich's spring festival Sechseläuten ends with the burning of the Böögg, a figure of what?

A snowman: the Böögg stands for winter, and its head is packed with fireworks; the faster it explodes once the pyre is lit, the finer the summer is said to be.

In the earliest Roman calendar, March was which month of the year?

The first: the calendar credited to Romulus began with March, named for Mars, which is why September to December still carry the Latin numbers seven to ten.

The Roman Hilaria on the March equinox honoured which mother goddess?

Cybele, the Great Mother: the Hilaria of 25 March rejoiced at the rebirth of her consort Attis after days of mourning, and no one was allowed to show grief; her statue's ritual bath followed on 27 March.

The Athenian spring festival Anthesteria honoured which god?

Dionysus: the Anthesteria, held in the month Anthesterion (February–March), opened with Pithoigia, when storage jars of the previous vintage were ceremonially broached.

George Hudson, an insect collector, first proposed modern daylight saving time in 1895 in which country?

New Zealand: Hudson's shift work at the Wellington post office left him evenings for collecting insects, so he proposed a two-hour clock change to gain daylight; his country took decades to adopt the idea.

In which two US states does Major League Baseball hold spring training?

Arizona and Florida: Florida hosted most of the clubs until 2010, when the 30 teams split evenly, 15 in its Grapefruit League and 15 in Arizona's Cactus League.

Which team, from the city of baseball's first all-professional club, traditionally opens every MLB season at home?

Cincinnati Reds: they are the only club scheduled to open every season at home, and their city treats Opening Day as a holiday, with the Findlay Market Parade marching before the first pitch.

Which two men founded the Masters golf tournament, first played in 1934?

Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts launched it as the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, personally inviting a field made up largely of Jones's close associates; 'Masters' became official in 1939.

The UK's early May bank holiday has twice moved to 8 May to mark the anniversary of what?

VE Day: the holiday left the first Monday of May for 8 May in 1995 and 2020, the 50th and 75th anniversaries of victory in Europe, so in 2020 the bank holiday fell on a Friday.

Which Christian feast is kept on the fortieth day of Easter?

The Ascension: Acts says the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples over forty days before being taken up, so the feast falls on a Thursday, though some churches move it to the following Sunday.

In an old English spring custom, boys were bumped on parish boundary stones to make them do what?

Remember: maps were rare, so parishes walked their boundary each Rogationtide and bumped or even whipped the boys at the marker stones, making lifelong witnesses to where it ran.

Rama Navami celebrates the birth of Rama, the seventh avatar of which god?

Vishnu: Rama Navami falls on the ninth day of the month of Chaitra, at the close of the spring Navaratri, and worshippers rock a small image of the infant Rama in a cradle.

Japan's Golden Week ends on 5 May with which public holiday, marked by flying carp-shaped streamers?

Children's Day closes the week that Showa Day opens on 29 April; families fly a carp streamer for each family member because a carp that swims up a waterfall is said to become a dragon.

At Ugadi, neem flowers eaten with jaggery stand for what?

Sorrow and joy: at this Telugu and Kannada New Year the bitter neem and sweet jaggery in Ugadi pachadi, mixed with sour and salty tastes, are a reminder to expect every flavour of experience in the year ahead.

Rongali Bihu, a mid-April festival, opens the New Year in which Indian state?

Assam: Rongali or Bohag Bihu opens the Assamese New Year, and its first day belongs to the cattle, which are led to a pond or river, bathed and rubbed with turmeric paste.

At Vishu, a tray of rice, fruit and golden flowers must be the day's first sight in which Indian state?

Kerala: the display, called Vishukkani, also holds coins and a mirror, because Malayalis hold that the year will go better if its first sight is something auspicious and joyful.

Red-and-white martenitsi are exchanged on 1 March, Baba Marta Day, in which country?

Bulgaria: Baba Marta, 'Grandma March', is a moody old woman of folklore, and the tassels are worn to win her mercy until the wearer sees a stork or a tree in blossom, then hung on a branch.

Kurentovanje, a spring carnival of furry-costumed Kurents, is held in which country?

Slovenia: the town of Ptuj hosts Kurentovanje, where Kurents in sheepskin, cowbells and feathered masks chase away winter; UNESCO listed the door-to-door rounds in 2017.

Which food do Russians eat all through Maslenitsa, the 'Butter Week' at the end of winter?

Blini are the week's signature food, and on its last day people strip a straw effigy of Lady Maslenitsa of her finery and burn it.

Danish children at Fastelavn beat a sweet-filled barrel that once held what?

A cat: the game is still called 'hitting the cat out of the barrel', because beating the barrel and chasing the animal off was thought to drive away evil; today's winners are crowned cat king and queen.

Which day marks the start of Holy Week in Western Christianity?

Palm Sunday opens Holy Week, recalling Christ's entry into Jerusalem, when crowds greeted him with palm branches; Easter follows seven days later.

Between which hours is the 'Three Hours' Agony' service held?

Noon to 3 p.m.: the Gospels record darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour while Jesus hung on the cross, and the Good Friday service keeps those three hours.

Pentecost is often called the birthday of what?

The Church: Acts tells how the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles as tongues of fire, they began preaching to the crowds, and about three thousand people were baptised that day.

Anzac Day on 25 April originally honoured troops who fought in which WWI campaign?

Gallipoli: Anzac troops landed there on 25 April 1915, and a year later more than 2,000 of them marched through London, where one newspaper hailed 'the knights of Gallipoli'.

On King's Day, 27 April, Dutch crowds traditionally dress in which colour?

Orange honours the royal House of Orange-Nassau; the holiday moved to 27 April, King Willem-Alexander's birthday, in 2014, and towns hold free markets where people sell their used goods.

Which general led Mexico's 1862 victory at Puebla, celebrated on Cinco de Mayo?

Ignacio Zaragoza led the outnumbered Mexican army at Puebla on 5 May 1862; he died of typhoid that September, and the invaders took Mexico City the following year.

Which US city dyes its river green for Saint Patrick's Day?

Chicago first turned its river green in 1962, after crews who used green dye to trace waste discharges had the idea; the local plumbers' union still does the dyeing.

Which queen saved the Jewish people from Haman, an event celebrated at Purim?

Esther, the Jewish queen of Persia's Ahasuerus, exposed Haman's plot; her cousin Mordecai had earlier foiled an assassination attempt on the king.

By one tradition, Lag BaOmer marks the end of a plague that killed 24,000 students of which sage?

Rabbi Akiva: medieval rabbis named Lag BaOmer as the day the plague among his students ended, which is why the Omer's mourning customs lift then and weddings and haircuts resume.

Which harvest did Shavuot mark in the Land of Israel according to Exodus?

Wheat: Exodus 34:22 ties the feast to the first fruits of the wheat harvest; it later came to mark the giving of the Law at Sinai, so Jews keep it by studying the Torah and reading the Book of Ruth.

Vesak commemorates which three events in the life of the Buddha?

Birth, enlightenment and death: Theravada tradition places all three on the full moon of Vaisakha, so Vesak honours the Buddha's birth at Lumbini, awakening at Bodh Gaya and passing at Kushinagar.

The bluebonnet is the state flower of which US state?

Texas named one bluebonnet species its state flower in 1901, but Texans came to prefer another, so in 1971 lawmakers extended the title to every bluebonnet species in the state.

In Scotland, the name 'bluebell' refers to which plant instead of Hyacinthoides?

The harebell, Campanula rotundifolia, is the Scottish bluebell, a summer flower of dry grassland; the English bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, carpets ancient woodlands in spring.

The toxins found in every part of lily-of-the-valley chiefly disrupt which organ?

The heart: the plant's cardiac glycosides, such as convallatoxin, can cause an irregular heartbeat, yet its French name, muguet, appears on perfumes that copy the flower's scent.

Eliza Scidmore, who campaigned for Washington's cherry trees, was the first woman on the board of which society?

The National Geographic Society, which she joined in 1890 as a writer and photographer; she first proposed the trees in 1885 and kept asking each new parks superintendent for 24 years.

The Kentucky Derby, run since 1875, is traditionally held on which day?

The first Saturday in May: the modern Derby has left that date only twice, running on 9 June in 1945 after a wartime racing ban and on 5 September in 2020 because of Covid-19.

The first Indianapolis 500 winner carried what in place of a riding mechanic?

A rear-view mirror: Ray Harroun drove alone in 1911, so with no mechanic beside him to warn of cars coming up behind, he fitted a mirror, believed to be the first on a racing car.

The RHS's famous May flower show is held in the grounds of which London institution?

The Royal Hospital Chelsea has hosted the RHS Great Spring Show since 1913, after the 1912 Royal International Horticultural Exhibition there proved the site's worth.

The Cannes Film Festival, usually held each May, was created as a rival to which older festival?

Venice: after political pressure swung the 1938 Venice prizes to an Italian war film and a Nazi documentary, a rival festival was planned on the Riviera for September 1939; war delayed it until 1946.

In Alaska and northern Canada, what is the spring thaw that turns roads to muck called?

Breakup, named for river ice breaking apart: frozen lower soil stops meltwater draining away, so dirt roads turn to muck as the surface thaws from the top down.

The Giro d'Italia, the spring Grand Tour, was first organised in 1909 to boost sales of what?

A sports newspaper: La Gazzetta dello Sport launched the Giro in 1909 to lift circulation, and the race leader's pink jersey matches the paper's pink newsprint.

On April Fools' Day 1957, the BBC's Panorama showed a Swiss family harvesting which food from trees?

Spaghetti was barely known in 1950s Britain, so hundreds of viewers phoned in, some asking how to grow a tree; the BBC told them to plant a sprig in a tin of tomato sauce.

In Italy and Belgium, April Fools' Day pranksters try to pin what to a victim's back unnoticed?

A paper fish is the classic prank because April 1 is known there as 'April fish', a name already found in a poem of 1508.

The name dandelion comes from a French phrase likening the plant's jagged leaves to which part of a lion?

Lion's tooth is the meaning of 'dent de lion', the phrase English borrowed; the plant's other folk names include blowball, puff-ball and pee-a-bed.

Which tart crop, among the earliest harvested in spring, has leaves made poisonous by oxalic acid?

Rhubarb stalks are the only part to eat. In Britain the year's first crop is forced in dark sheds and picked by candlelight, which keeps the stalks sweeter and more tender.

At Chichen Itza, afternoon shadows on the main pyramid form which creature as spring begins?

A serpent seems to wriggle down the staircase to the carved snake heads at its foot, which some scholars read as the feathered god Kukulcán descending.

Which bird, weighing only a few grams, crosses the Gulf of Mexico each spring in one nonstop flight?

The ruby-throated hummingbird sets out from the Yucatán and flies some 500 miles across open sea, a feat that seems to need more fuel than its 3-gram body could carry.

Which noisy insects swarm the eastern US in late spring after 13 or 17 years underground?

Cicadas of this kind are often miscalled locusts, but locusts are grasshoppers; these are true bugs that spend their long wait sipping fluid from tree roots.

Which member of a bumblebee colony is the only one to survive winter and found a new nest in spring?

The queen starts entirely alone: the old workers and drones die as the weather turns cold, so she builds the nest and forages herself until her first daughters take over.

Which Beatle wrote 'Here Comes the Sun' in Eric Clapton's garden on an April day in 1969?

Harrison was playing truant from a business meeting at Apple, and later wrote that an English winter 'goes on forever', so 'by the time spring comes you really deserve it'.

In Disney's Bambi, Friend Owl warns that nearly everybody gets what in the springtime?

Twitterpated was coined for the 1942 film, and the friends who scoff at the owl's warning are each smitten by a new sweetheart soon afterwards.

The word 'tulip' is thought to come, via Ottoman Turkish, from a word for which item of headwear?

Turban is the likely root because the bloom's shape recalled one, or perhaps through a translator's mix-up at a time when Ottomans wore tulips on their turbans.

The month of March, when Roman armies resumed campaigning after winter, is named after which god?

Mars was both god of war and, as father of Romulus and Remus, an ancestor of the Roman people, so the month that reopened the fighting season carried his name.

Which bourbon cocktail, served in souvenir glasses, is the traditional drink of the Kentucky Derby?

Mint julep, a mix of bourbon, mint and sugar syrup, has been promoted by the Churchill Downs track since 1938 and is poured into collectible glasses made for each race.

What garment has the winner of golf's Masters, played each April at Augusta, received since 1949?

A green jacket leaves Augusta with the champion for only a year: he must then return it to the clubhouse, where it is stored beside those of earlier winners.

In the Old Farmer's Almanac, March's full moon is named after which creature of early spring?

Worm is usually taken to mean earthworms surfacing as the soil warms, but an explorer of the 1760s recorded that it meant insect larvae creeping out of thawing bark.

Which medicines, named for the body chemical they counter, are widely taken for spring hay fever?

Antihistamines counteract histamine, the chemical behind the sneezing and stuffy nose, and most are cheap generic drugs sold without a prescription.

Which rooftop-nesting bird, back from Africa each spring, is said in folklore to deliver babies?

Stork lore once held that the birds found babies in caves or marshes and carried them to households in a basket on their backs or held in their beaks.

Which gemstone, a variety of the mineral beryl once adored by Cleopatra, is the birthstone for May?

Emerald is coloured by traces of chromium or vanadium, and only medium to dark stones earn the name; paler ones are classed simply as a kind of beryl.

In Greek myth, spring returns each year when Persephone comes back from the realm of which god?

Hades released her only after tricking her into eating pomegranate seeds, a taste of underworld food that obliged her to go back to him for part of every year.

Which Lake District poet 'wandered lonely as a cloud' before coming upon a host of golden daffodils?

Wordsworth drew on an April walk with his sister Dorothy, whose journal pictured the flowers beside Ullswater tossing and dancing as if they 'laughed with the wind'.

In Tennyson's 'Locksley Hall', what 'lightly turns to thoughts of love' in the spring?

A young man's fancy caps a run of spring images, a redder robin and a freshly crested lapwing, in a line often called one of the most famous and most misquoted in English verse.

A soothsayer's warning to 'beware the Ides of March' is spoken to which Shakespeare title character?

Julius Caesar brushes the soothsayer aside and is stabbed at a meeting of the Senate on that very day, the mid-point of the month in the Roman calendar.

What is a spring-hatched young goose called before it fledges?

Gosling is the old word 'gos', goose, with the diminutive ending -ling; it may have come from Old Norse 'gæslingr', and it pushed out the Old English form 'gesling'.

A horse born in spring is known by what name in its first year, whether male or female?

Foal covers both sexes up to a year old: colt means only a young male and filly a young female, and after one year the animal becomes a yearling.

Spring onions are sold in the US under which name, taken from the ancient port city of Ascalon?

Scallions and shallots share one root, the Latin for 'Ascalonian onion', after a trading port on the eastern Mediterranean coast.

Spring rolls are traditionally eaten at the Spring Festival, a holiday better known in English by what name?

Chinese New Year fell as winter's preserved foods ran low, so a pancake rolled around the season's earliest fresh vegetables made a welcome change.

March Madness, the US college knockout tournament held each spring, is played in which sport?

Basketball's NCAA tournament is also branded the Big Dance, and it is single-elimination, so one bad night sends even a top-ranked college team home.

Which Canadian province, where sap is tapped each spring, makes most of the world's maple syrup?

Quebec alone accounts for roughly 70% of global output; maples store starch before winter, and it turns to sugar that rises in the sap as the thaw begins.

Which US state launched America's Arbor Day in 1872 by planting an estimated one million trees?

Nebraska editor J. Sterling Morton proposed the tree-planting day, and the state still keeps Arbor Day as a civic holiday on the last Friday in April.

Hawaii's version of May Day, celebrated on May 1 since the 1920s, honours which island tradition?

The lei got its own holiday after a writer proposed pairing it with May Day, and each island now wears a different garland for the celebration.

Which marine biologist wrote Silent Spring, the 1962 book that led to a US ban on the pesticide DDT?

Rachel Carson took her title from a Keats line, 'And no birds sing'; the book swayed public opinion and helped lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Fiddleheads, a foraged spring vegetable, are the tightly curled young leaves of which kind of plant?

Ferns would unroll each fiddlehead into a full frond if left alone, so foragers cut them early and close to the ground, before the coil has opened.

The furry buds that willows bear before their leaves in spring are flower clusters called what?

Catkins on some small willows are cloaked in fine greyish fur before they flower, a fancied likeness to tiny cats that gave pussy willow its name.

Which orange wildflower, California's state flower since 1903, carpets the Antelope Valley in spring?

Poppy petals close at night or in cold, windy weather and open again the following morning, and they may stay shut all day under cloud.

Magnolia trees evolved before bees, so their tough flowers are built for visits from which insects?

Beetles are thought to be the visitors magnolias evolved to attract, and they are rough guests: the insects often damage the carpels at the heart of the flower.

Which American composer wrote the 1944 ballet Appalachian Spring for the choreographer Martha Graham?

Copland composed it under the working title 'Ballet for Martha'; Graham chose the final name, a phrase from a Hart Crane poem, only shortly before the premiere.

Botticelli's Primavera, his large Renaissance allegory of spring, hangs in which Florence gallery?

The Uffizi also holds The Birth of Venus, the artist's other very large mythological scene, and the two are always discussed together though they were never a pair.

The Eta Aquariid meteor shower, peaking each year in early May, is debris shed by which famous comet?

Halley supplies two showers a year, because Earth meets its trail of debris again in October for the Orionids, usually the weaker display of the pair.

Which spring garden flower takes its name from the Greek goddess of the rainbow?

Iris was also the Greek word for the rainbow itself, and some authors say the flower earned the name through the wide variety of colours its species come in.

Which Canadian city's spring tulip festival grew from bulbs sent by a grateful royal family in 1945?

Ottawa sheltered the exiled Princess Juliana and her family during the war, and the 100,000 bulbs sent in thanks were followed by thousands more every year.

Which spring vegetable, grown white in Germany under mounded soil, gives urine a distinctive smell?

Asparagus shoots kept from sunlight never turn green, and in Germany the season for the white spears traditionally ends on 24 June, with about half sold at roadside stands and markets.

Most attempts on which mountain come in May, in a calm window of barely ten days before the monsoon?

Everest is so high that the jet stream can hit the summit, so climbers wait for the brief lull when those freezing winds shift away as the monsoon nears.

Which trophy, donated by Canada's governor general, is the prize in NHL playoffs that open each April?

The Stanley Cup has had its winners' names engraved on its bands since 1924, and by its oldest tradition the champions drink champagne from it.

On April 23 in Catalonia, sweethearts exchange books and roses to mark the feast day of which saint?

George shares April 23 with the death anniversaries of Cervantes and Shakespeare, which is why booksellers had Catalonia's Book Day moved onto his feast in 1931.

Which honeycomb-capped mushrooms, prized by spring foragers, can be toxic if eaten raw?

Morels can come up in bumper crops the spring after a wildfire, so commercial pickers target recently burned forest and keep their best spots closely guarded.

Which composer wrote the Violin Sonata No. 5, published in 1801 and nicknamed the 'Spring' Sonata?

Beethoven apparently never knew the nickname, which seems to have been attached after his death; he dedicated the sonata to his patron Count Moritz von Fries.

Which Australian horse race, run each spring on the first Tuesday of November, 'stops the nation'?

Melbourne Cup day is a public holiday in Melbourne, and the race, first run in 1861 and now a 3,200-metre handicap, is part of the city's Spring Racing Carnival.

Which reformist leader launched the Prague Spring of 1968, soon crushed by a Warsaw Pact invasion?

Dubček's reforms lasted less than eight months, and only one formal change survived the invasion: the division of the country into a federation of Czech and Slovak republics.

Which science, named in Brussels in 1849, tracks the timing of events such as spring's first blossom?

Phenology records now serve climate historians, because dates of blossom, harvest and bird arrival track temperature closely; grape-harvest logs reach back over 500 years.

Which South African city is nicknamed Jacaranda City for street trees that bloom purple every spring?

Pretoria's 70,000 or so jacarandas flower each October, the southern spring; the tree is an import from South America, yet purple now features on local council logos.