Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Weld (Reseda luteola)

Dear Readers, a few weeks ago I discovered this plant growing on the edge of the playing fields next to Coldfall Wood, and I was so intrigued that I thought it deserved a Wednesday Weed all to itself. When I saw it for the first time, it reminded me of of the tip-tilted tail of a curious cat, albeit a yellow one, so how could I resist? Plus, it is the first member of the mignonette family to grace the blog. The plant often grows in places where the soil has been disturbed, as here – the ground was turned over when some additional drainage measures were implemented last year. Who knows how long these seeds have been waiting for the correct conditions for germination?

Weld is an ancient introduction to the UK from Eurasia, and was probably planted because it produces a bright yellow dye (its other common names include Dyer’s Weld and and Dyer’s Rocket). In its native Iran, it is the commonest plant dye for use in carpets. It is one of our earliest dye plants, in use from the first millenium BC. Mixed with the blue dye from woad (Isatis tinctoria) it made Lincoln Green, much beloved by Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

Robin Hood with Sir Guy by Louis Rhead, 1912

The whole plant was used, and the yellower the flowers, and the thinner the stems, the better the dye. I can’t help thinking that the little crop that I saw would have been perfect, although plants that grow on sandy soils are preferred to those that grow on moist clay soils, such as here in London.

The plant was the dye of choice for the clothes of ordinary people, but could also be used to dye silk (this is how it was used by the Vikings). To produce sufficient quantities, it was grown commercially in the south-east and in Yorkshire, and was sometimes planted alongside corn and barley. Such was the demand for weld that the plant had to be imported from France during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries.

In the UK, the use of weld as a dye came to an end at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, when artificial means of colouration were created. However, in Egypt the plant, known as Reseda, is still harvested in large quantities as a dye for tapestries.

Wool dyed with reseda at Wissa Wassef Art Centre, Giza, Egypt, 2016 (Photo One – see credit below)

The dye from weld was also used as an ink, and as a paint – to make it permanent, it was precipitated with chalk. Many medieval manuscript artists used it as a substitute for gold when they were illuminating their texts. It was also used to provide the yellow colour in tapestries and carpets, much as it is today.

The Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestry (1495-1505) – The yellows are from weld, the blues from woad, the reds from madder (Photo Two – see details below)

Medicinally, it is said to have been a ‘last-resort’ for the plague, and was also used as a poultice for snake bite and insect stings, although it is apparently a ‘hot’ herb, like radish and horseradish, though it is unrelated to either. It appears to largely go uneaten, or at least I can’t find any recipes. It seems to be one of those plants that has one main human use, and that is to dye things.

However, weld is also a popular plant with pollinators: bees seem to love it, but it is also a favourite of flower beetles, like the little chap above.

I am intrigued by how many craftspeople are using wild plant dyes in their work these days. In her wonderful blog Wool – Tribulations of Hand Spinning and Herbal Dyeing, Fran Rushworth experiments with weld, and finds that it produces a remarkably strong and attractive yellow dye. We are rediscovering so many fascinating things about our local plants – it’s as if we are meeting up with old friends. For so much of our history we have been in direct relationship with the environment, and now so many of us are lost, wandering in a world we don’t understand. Foraging for food or for other purposes often means that we not only get a greater knowledge of what’s going on around us, but also that we have a vested interest in preserving it.

Photo Credits

Photo One – By Glennweiss – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47596752

Photo Two is in the public domain – the tapestry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.

All other photos copyright Vivienne Palmer. Free to use and share non-commercially, but please attribute, and link back to the blog, thank you!

Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)

Dear Readers, what a handsome plant common mallow is! There are several specimens growing in an area of the playing fields next to Coldfall Wood that was turned over to improve drainage last year. With their twisted buds and prominent stamen it is easy to see their relationship to their more enthusiastic cousins, the hollyhocks.

The plant has several English vernacular names that refer to cheese – ‘Cheesecake’ is one, and ‘Pick Cheese’ is another. But why? Apparently because the fruit is a ‘doughnut-shaped ring of nutlets’ according to my Harrap’s ‘Wild Flowers’, and because these seeds resemble a whole cheese. Children have been known to eat the seeds, which apparently have a bland, mealy taste.

The ‘cheese-like’ fruit of the common mallow (Photo One – credit below)

Common mallow is an ancient introduction to the UK, having a native range that includes the whole of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and spreads as far east as Mongolia. The pollen from the plant has been found in a Roman excavation in Bearsden, close to Glasgow, and it is known that the leaves, flowers and seeds were eaten by the Romans, both as food as a kind of preventative medicine – Pliny said that a daily dose would make you immune to all diseases (many thanks, yet again, to Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica for this information). Mabey speculates that, as the pollen is only found at the Roman levels of the excavation, the plant may well have been cultivated by the legion.

Both the leaves and roots of common mallow contain a lot of gelatinous mucilage, which has been used in ointments for burns and wounds, and as a generally soothing tonic for inflammation and irritation. The leaves also contain a lot of iron and vitamins.

You might wonder if there was an association between the Mallow family and Marshmallows, and indeed there is: the now nationally scarce Marsh Mallow (Althea officinalis) was probably the source of the original sweet, which was made from its roots. Nowadays, marshmallows are typically made with gelatin, sugar and water, coated in corn starch.

On the Permaculture website , there are many references to uses of common mallow as food. In both Hebrew and Arabic, the local name of the plant translates as ‘bread’, and when Jerusalem was under siege in 1948 it was an important famine crop. Some Israelis still prepare Ktzitziot Khubeza, a patty made of mallow leaves, breadcrumbs, eggs and spices on Independence Day (6th May), or may incorporate the plant into a soup. There is an interesting article about the history of the mallow in Israeli cuisine here.

You can also use the seeds from common mallow as a partial replacement for egg white in meringues. Again, from the Permaculture website:

‘The seed pods can be substituted for most of the egg white if wanting to make mallow meringues. Simply boil up the peeled seed pods using 3 parts water 1 part seed pods, and reduce the liquid by half. For every half cup of liquid add one egg white, ¼ tsp of cream of tartar, some vanilla and castor sugar, then whip it up until foamy and stiff, just like meringues.’

Incidentally, for those of us who would like to reduce our reliance on animal products, I was recently reading that meringue can be made from the water that chickpeas are canned in (called aquafaba). Who would have dreamed of such a thing? I haven’t tried any recipes yet, but I am intrigued. After all, what could be cheaper than something that would normally be thrown away? For anyone else who is interested, here is a link to all kinds of pavlovas, pies and macarons that can apparently be knocked up for almost nothing. Wonders will never cease, indeed.

Anyhow, back to common mallow.

Common mallow was also said to be one of the plants traditionally incorporated into May Day garlands. This puzzles me a little, as these days the plant’s flowering season doesn’t now really kick off until June. Did it bloom earlier in previous centuries, or was it a rare component that was appreciated all the more for its scarcity? Who knows. It certainly has a rather exotic look, with its purple striped flowers.

Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)

And finally, in ‘Flora Domestica, Or, The Portable Flower Garden’, by Elizabeth Kent and Leigh Hunt (written in 1831), there is this on the subject of the common mallow:

‘The common Mallow of this country must be familiar even to London readers; it is ‘an amiable plant, generally to be found in spots neglected by mankind’.

By which, gentle reader, we can deduce both that the average Londoner was considered to be a bit of a klutz with regard to noticing the natural world even then, and also that the plant was found in urban areas, and may have been considered something of a ‘weed’. Some things change, and some things stay very much the same.

Photo Credits

Photo One – By Ferran Turmo Gort https://www.flickr.com/photos/fturmog/1402925498

All other photos free to use and share for non-commercial purposes, but please credit Vivienne Palmer and link to the blog. Thank you!

Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Oxeye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare)

Dear Readers, the oxeye daisies are in full bloom in the cemetery, especially in the area which has been designated for meadow burials. I love the way that they seem to glow (one of their alternative names is ‘Moon Daisy’) and the way that their broad, single flowers are used by all kinds of pollinators, but especially hoverflies.  The Latin name, Leucanthemum vulgare, literally means ‘common white flower’, but in the language of flowers oxeye daisies are said to represent patience. It always seems to me that there is something stoical and unassuming about this plant, and it’s very easy to just pass it by and not notice how exquisitely formed the flowers are.

If you look closely at the photo above, you can see how the yellow middle part of the flower looks rather bulgy and uneven. This is because each of the segments is actually a separate flower – a ‘disc floret’. Each petal is a separate flower too – a ‘ray floret’. Each ‘petal’ is female, but the florets in the middle are hermaphrodite, with both stamen (male) and a style (female). If you examine an oxeye daisy at this time of year, you will see the disc florets erupting, one at a time, to enable pollination, and this is what gives the bumpy appearance. The sex life of a plant is indeed a wonder to contemplate.

Oxeye daisy is native to Europe and the western parts of Asia, but has been naturalised in North America and Australasia as well. It is common in the Alpine flower meadows of Austria and Switzerland, and in these countries it is believed that hanging it in the home or in a barn would repel thunder. In Somerset in the UK it was associated with Thor, the God of Thunder (though what the folk of Somerset have to do with a Norse god puzzles me somewhat. Maybe those blooming Vikings).

In Scotland, it appears that oxeye daisy (known as ‘gool’) was considered a significant pest (not only in arable fields, but also because if cattle eat the plant it can taint their milk). ‘Gool-riders’ would ride through the parish, and any farmer with an unacceptable number of the flowers in his fields was fined up to 3s 4d or a ‘wedder sheep’, which I think may be a castrated ram (though any sheep-farming readers can correct me!)

Oxeye daisy is also known as Marguerite in some French-speaking parts of the world, after the ‘He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not’ game ‘effeuiller la marguerite’. I suppose that a daisy the size of this one makes it much easier where petal-counting is involved!

Giacomo di Chirico – ‘He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not’ – 1872. Though I fear that here the lady is using a rose, not an oxeye daisy as you would expect. Maybe she is too grand for such a humble plant.

As with many members of the daisy family (many of which have ‘fleabane’ somewhere in their names), oxeye daisy was believed to deter parasites if it was included in the bedding of domestic animals. It is also said to be useful medicinally, especially in cases of respiratory disease. The plant, if added to ale, was said to be a traditional treatment for jaundice, maybe because of its yellow centre. It was also used in an ointment to treat bruises and rashes, and there’s something logical about those pure white flowers being used for healing.

As a plant which often bursts into flower around the Solstice, oxeye daisy is associated with the feast day of St John the Baptist on 24th June. And as it is one of those plants that goes on and on, it is also associated with St Mary Magdalene, whose feast day is on 22nd July.

My pot of oxeye daisies

It appears that you can also eat oxeye daisies. On the Eden Project website, there is a recipe for Tempura-Battered Oxeye Daisies, which are said to taste a little like pineapple. I suppose that this is not surprising, as I always think that tea made from the chamomile, a close relative, reminds me of the tropical fruit.  And on the Eat The Weeds website there are details for how to pickle the buds, which are said to taste like capers. Maybe this tastiness is what explains the denuded flowers of some of my oxeye daisies, who look as if someone has systematically nibbled off every petal.

Somebody has been eating my ox-eye daisies.

This is undoubtedly the work of our old friends, the snails (and possibly the slugs as well). I have been fighting a running (or maybe crawling) battle with these molluscan devils all summer. I have a pot of oxeye daisies on my front porch, and every evening I check the rim of the pot, and the surface of the soil, for any sneaky shells. I then toss the miscreants into the lavender, where they will have a long journey back. But every morning, a few more petals seem to disappear. I suppose that they are such tasty morsels that the snails will eat them in preference to anything else. What I really need is a hedgehog, but, in spite of encouragement, I have not seen so much as a prickle. In fact, the last hedgehog that I saw was a squashed one in Somerset last week. I wonder if you can rescue a hedgehog, like you can a cat or dog? There would certainly be lots for them to do in my garden.

Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica)

Dear Readers, how could you not love a plant with a name like ‘Hedge Woundwort’? It sounds like a character from a Tolkien novel. In fact, it is a member of the Deadnettle family, a native plant, and is described in my plant books as ‘common’. Well, common it might be, but I have never noticed it before this week, which just goes to show that I should pay more attention. Who knows what I might find?

The whole plant looks as if it’s in a state of full alert, from the stemmed leaves to the gaping, dragon-mouth flowers. There is something rather martial about it, compared to the softer look of, say, white deadnettle. The flowers remind me a little of tiny gargoyles, sticking out from a church tower.

As you might expect from its name, hedge woundwort has a fine reputation as a medicinal herb, especially in the treatment of bruises and lacerations. Its other common name was ‘Allheal’ as a result. The herbalist Nicholas Culpeper said that it was ‘inferior to none’ as a treatment for injuries, and in the seventeenth century John Gerard held the plant in very high esteem, and used it extensively. The Modern Herbal website tells us that in the nineteenth century the author of the Universal Herbal, a Mr Green, thought that if the leaves were rubbed to give off their rather foetid smell, this could act as a stimulant, rather like smelling salts.

We also learn from Mr Green that toads like to shelter under the leaves of the hedge woundwort, and that, although sheep and goats will eat the plants, hogs and horses refuse them. I have looked in vain for a photo of a toad sheltering under any kind of leaf, but here is a toad which could possibly be looking for something to shelter under. The photographer, Patrick Connolly (full credit below) tells us that this is a toad that has visited his garden for many years. I have not a single toad in my garden, so my jealousy knows no bounds.

A very fine toad indeed (Photo One – full credit below)

I was rather intrigued by the genus name ‘Stachys’. This apparently comes from the Greek for ‘ear of grain’, and refers to the way that the flowers often grow in spikes, as can be seen in the closely related garden plant, Stachys byzantina. This plant, with its very hairy leaves, is a favourite with the European wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum), who scrapes off the ‘fluff’ and carries it away beneath her bodies to build her nest. It’s almost worth growing some to see if these insect harvesters turn up.

Stachys byzantina. Note the flower spikes and the furry leaves (Photo Two – credit below)

European wool carder bee (Photo Three – credit below)

But, I digress, as usual. I have been trying to discover if Hedge Woundwort has any culinary uses, but it appears that the plant, while safe to feed to tortoises has limited culinary appeal. On Herbs 2000 it is suggested that the tuberous roots have been eaten, and have a ‘pleasant, nutty taste’. However although the shoots are said to have a ‘pleasing flavour’, they also ‘smell disgusting’. I think I will be leaving this one to the more intrepid foragers amongst you, and good luck!

Photo Credits

Photo One: © Copyright patrick connolly and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Photo Two: By Jean-Pol GRANDMONT – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21409910

Photo Three: By Bruce Marlin – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=662209

All other photos copyright Vivienne Palmer. Free to use, but please attribute and include a link to the blog. Thank you!