Pink Purslane (Claytonia sibirica)

Dear Readers, I was very intrigued by this plant when I spotted it alongside the river walk in R.H.S Wisley. It’s a very delicate-looking plant, and it’s a long way from home – it comes originally from the far north-west of North America, including Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and Haida Gwaii. It was introduced to the UK in the 18th century and promptly made itself at home. It’s also known as Spring Beauty, and indeed Siberian Spring Beauty, though as far as I know it’s never been to Siberia. Although the flowers look rather Geranium-ish to me, it’s actually a member of the Montiaceae family, which includes a very raggle-taggle crew, including Lewisia, some succulent-y plants and something called Pussypaws. 

Pussypaws (Cistanthe umbellata) Photo By Walter Siegmund – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2949636

This is a plant of moist woodland, and its very early flowering is thought to be a problem in some areas – it grows, flowers, and collapses on top of other, later woodland plants. However, I suspect that Lesser Celandine would give it a run for its money. In Scotland there’s a population of pure white ‘Pink’ Purslane, known as the Stewarton Plant – the plant can reproduce via bulbils, so the white colour has remained, and might even outcompete any pink flowers. Apparently it was first reported in 1915, with the word being that it had been in Stewarton for at least sixty years before this.

Stewarton Flower (Photo By Rosser1954 at en.wikipedia – Own workTransferred from en.wikipedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17719269)

Apparently Pink Purslane is edible, in particular those green leaves in early spring, which do have a rather toothsome look. Apparently the leaves produce a pink liquid when cooked, so presumably you could have some pink pancakes. However, be careful – there are lots of ‘purslanes’ out there, and I suspect that you could get very different results if you picked the wrong one (though as far as I’m aware none are poisonous). In its native range, the plant is one of those honoured with the epithet ‘Miner’s Lettuce’, because it was used to prevent scurvy by miners during the California Gold Rush. Allegedly. Apparently the plant tastes a little like beetroot, which may or may not fill you with enthusiasm.

I went down a rabbit hole trying to find the derivation of the word ‘purslane’, and as far as I can see it was first used after the Norman invasion of England in 1066, when it came from the noun ‘porcelain’. What that had to do with a little green plant I have no idea.

Medicinally, Pink Purslane has been used as a diuretic, an eye wash and a treatment for dandruff, and probably for lots of other unrecorded purposes up there in the Pacific North West, where it grows in bear-trodden woods.

And here’s a poem. I didn’t know poet Ada Limón, but more fool me – she is the first Latina Poet Laureate in the US, and I shall be looking out some more of her work. See what you think.

The Burying Beetle
By Ada Limón
February 19, 2017

I like to imagine even the plants
want attention, so I weed for four
hours straight, assuring the tomatoes
feel July’s hot breath on the neck,
the Japanese maple can stretch,
the sweet potatoes, spider plants,
the Asiatic lilies can flourish in this
place we’ve dared to say we “own.”
Each nicked spindle of morning glory
or kudzu or purslane or yellow rocket
(Barbarea vulgaris, for Christ’s sake),
and I find myself missing everyone I know.
I don’t know why. First come the piles
of nutsedge and creeper and then an
ache that fills the skin like the Cercospora
blight that’s killing the blue skyrocket juniper
slowly from the inside out. Sure, I know
what it is to be lonely, but today’s special
is a physical need to be touched by someone
decent, a pulsing palm to the back. My man
is in South Africa still, and people just keep
dying even when I try to pretend they’re
not. The crown vetch and the curly dock
are almost eliminated as I survey the neatness
of my work. I don’t feel I deserve this time,
or the small plot of earth I get to mold into
someplace livable. I lost God awhile ago.
And I don’t want to pray, but I can picture
the plants deepening right now into the soil,
wanting to live, so I lie down among them,
in my ripped pink tank top, filthy and covered
in sweat, among red burying beetles and dirt
that’s been turned and turned like a problem
in the mind.