Fine line watercolour style tattoo of a small purple flower, a pale bud and green leaves on a stem, on the inner ankle beside rolled denim.

Small purple flower sprig on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Colour · Photo

A small sprig tattoo shows a purple five-petalled flower at the top, a pale pink or white bloom below it, green leaves and a thin dark stem curving down. The linework is light and delicate, with soft washes of colour that fade gently into the skin. The tattoo sits low on the ankle, with the rolled jeans cuff and a blurred background framing it.

Fine line Botanical Ankle Flower Sprig Leaves Stem Bloom

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dilys had been sweeping the platform for twenty minutes before the 6.12 to Shrewsbury when she found the envelope tucked beneath the bench slats, damp at one corner and smelling faintly of rain. Inside was a single sprig pressed flat between two sheets of tissue: a purple bloom with five soft petals, a paler one below it gone the colour of weak tea, two serrated leaves, and a stem so thin she could barely see it against the paper.

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She took it to the lost property office, a cupboard behind the ticket barrier with a kettle and a noticeboard. Gavin, who ran it, said people left all sorts: umbrellas, dentures, a tortoise once. Nobody ever left flowers. "Someone pressed that properly," he said, holding it up to the strip light. "Took their time over it." Dilys agreed, then found she could not put it in the drawer with the others.

Each morning for a week she checked the bench. On the eighth day a woman in a green raincoat stood at the platform edge, looking at the empty boards as if they owed her something. Dilys walked over with the envelope held in both hands. The woman said nothing at first. Then she unfolded the tissue and touched the stem with one fingertip, and her shoulders dropped as though a heavy bag had been lifted from them.

"I pressed it the summer my mother was in Hereford," she said, "and I left it on this bench because it was the only place she ever waited for me." The 6.12 came in grey and loud, and the doors slid open. Dilys handed over the envelope and watched the woman tuck it inside her coat, close to her ribs, before she climbed aboard without looking back.