Dear Readers, I have a great fondness for Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) – I mentioned its use for headaches in my original post, but it’s so attractive, with its daisy flowers and bright green leaves. I always wonder what turns some plants from ‘weeds’ into ‘wildflowers’ or even ‘garden plants’, while some remain resolutely ‘weeds’ in most people’s minds. When I visited the garden centre last week I was amazed to see pots of trailing bellflower on sale, even though they are growing wild everywhere on the streets of East Finchley. Maybe one day Feverfew will make the jump, but clearly not yet. However, ironically it was probably first brought to the UK from the Balkan peninsula as an ornamental – it was first recorded in the wild in 995 CE, so I think we can consider it well-established.
The name ‘Feverfew’ refers to the belief that, if planted around buildings (especially during times of plague), the plant purified the air and put fevers to flight, a rather lovely idea, however inaccurate. The genus name ‘Tanacetum‘ means ‘immortality’ – the leaves of the closely-related Tansy were placed in the shrouds of the dead to deter vermin. The flowers of Feverfew are also thought to act as an insecticide, if dried and then steeped in water. Feverfew also protected against ‘elf-shot’ – if a mischievous elf took against a person or animal, they would shoot them with invisible arrows which caused extreme pain, such as that caused by a ‘stitch’ or arthritis. The spear-shaped leaves were thought to indicate that the plant would protect against such attacks.
The plant doesn’t seem a very likely candidate for edibility, but the flowers are used for herbal tea.In German, Feverfew is ‘Mutterkraut’ and was said to speed up labour – in sufficient quantities it was even thought to be an abortifacient. In the Veneto, where Feverfew is known as ‘erba madre’, it’s made into a cake (though the side effects of the plant mean that anyone who is pregnant shouldn’t be eating it). Recipe here for the non-gravid!
And here’s a poem. It’s tangential, but I loved it too much not to share it. Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848), the sister of the better known (of course!) William Herschel was the first professional woman astronomer, and the first woman to receive a salary as a scientist. However, she caught typhoid as a child, and grew to only 4 foot 3 inches tall – she was thought to be destined to be a household servant, but moved to Bath after her father’s death, where she became a renowned singer (appearing in Handel’s ‘Messiah’) and later becoming an astronomer who discovered several comets. We don’t know if Feverfew was used in her treatment for typhoid, but she survived the disease, and became a truly remarkable woman. For the full breadth of her life, have a look at the Wikipedia entry here.
And here’s the poem, by Irish poet Rosamund Taylor. I think it’s absolutely stunning, see what you think…
On Surviving Typhoid Fever by Rosamund Taylor
In 1828 the Royal Astronomical Society awarded a gold medal to Caroline Herschel. No woman would receive one again for 168 years.
My mother can’t forgive me for being alive.
The typhoid made me stooped, legs short,
never to be wed, but my hands are quick,
my voice strong, and I look up as I walk icy streets –
I may trip over frozen excrement
or sighing heaps of rags but I remember my brother’s
hand in mine as he said, look at the planets,
that’s Jupiter, and there’s Mars, there
among those constellations. I imagine walking
with the Seven Sisters, their bright cold hands,
meeting Orion, his gruff laugh, his belt looped
around my waist. All fancy, of course –
my mother says I read too many books
but I can’t resist the articles my brother sends,
solar winds and stars, telescopes, the geography
of Mars. I dream them, though I don’t sleep much:
at five I pull myself from warmth to break flinty ice
on the water buckets, begin bread, wake my mother
with hot milk. She pinches me. I won’t squeak –
she likes it when I do. Instead I begin
my piece-work, each stitch made with raw fingers,
rubbed stiff. I’m paying her back for my illness,
the days I spent in bed, the man I cannot wed,
the woman I cannot be. My mother won’t forgive me
for being alive, but I sing to myself, my clear soprano,
I put celestial distances to familiar tunes, whisper
names of Martian canals, of Jupiter’s moons.
In my head the whole scope of the sky.
And here’s my original Feverfew post, from (gulp) 2014….
Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium)
I am delighted to have spotted this plant at the corner of the workshop at the end of my road. Flowering away, minding its own business, is the plant that has been described as the ‘aspirin of the medieval world’. Feverfew, as its name suggests, was used for all kinds of colds, coughs and infections, and for general aches and pains. Even more excitingly, it has been proved to be extremely efficacious in the treatment of migraine, In a study of 270 migraine-sufferers, over seventy percent reported that their symptoms were significantly decreased after nibbling only one leaf a day for three months, whilst a third seemed to have eradicated their attacks altogether. If only I had known about this when I was growing up – my mother suffered from terrible, debilitating migraines, and it would have been interesting to see if this common, overlooked little plant would have helped her.
Even if it wasn’t so medicinally useful, this would be a welcome plant – it has a sunny, cheerful aspect, and certainly brightens up the rather prosaic corner of this small industrial site. As I stood on the pavement in my fluffy slippers, taking some photos, I was a source of some amazement to the workmen coming and going. One of them stopped, looked at me, looked at the plant and ruminated on what would be an appropriate comment. Eventually, it came.
‘It took us ages to grow that, you know’, he said, with the jolly sarcasm of the North London Geezer. I patted him on the arm.
‘You did a lovely job’, I said.
