This plant introduced from South Eastern Europe in the 19th century is low growing enough to escape the lawn mowers. The flowers are shorn by the mower but the main plant remains untouched so it happily colonises garden lawns, pitches and parks. These particular plants have been present in our lawn (grass) for over 20 years but as people have noticed all over the British Isles, the numbers and density are decreasing. One explanation for this is that when a new plant arrives it takes a while for the organisms which attack the plant in its home habitat to develop in the new one.