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…..

Dear Readers, this plant may seem an odd choice for a Wednesday Weed. For one thing, it is not a ‘weed’ even by my very wide definition and, although it probably originated in Japan, it is unknown in the wild. But on a dark January day, with slushy snow still on the ground and with the bitter wind infiltrating every gap between clothing and skin, it lit up St Pancras and Islington Cemetery like a sprinkle of starlight.

The people of Japan have an enduring relationship with cherry blossom – the fairy Ko-no-hana-sakuya-hime, ‘the maiden who causes the trees to bloom’, is said to waken the dormant trees into blossom by softly breathing on them. These were the trees of Emperors, and much time and effort was spent in selecting the best specimens (cherry trees are capable of great variation) and developing new kinds – the Japanese have had double-flowered cherry trees for over a thousand years. Furthermore, the Japanese knew about the art of grafting one tree onto another since early times, and so could propagate a new and exciting variety by persuading a cutting to grow from the stem of a more mundane tree. This is one reason why many people believe that the Winter Flowering Cherry is a hybrid (probably between the Fuji Cherry (Prunus incisa) and the Weeping Tree (Prunus spachiana) ). In Japan, the trees are doted upon, and some Winter Flowering Cherries can reach a very impressive stature.

Cherry blossom was so much tied up with Japanese culture that the trees were sometimes planted in order to  claim occupied territory as Japanese space. The ephemeral nature of the blossoms symbolises mortality in Buddhist teachings, and during the Second World War the Japanese population were encouraged to regard the flowers as the reincarnations of kamikaze fighters – indeed, one kamikaze sub-unit was named ‘the Wild Cherry Blossoms’. That these delicate blossoms could be used for such a militaristic purpose may seem strange to us now, but humans have always co-opted the symbolism of plants and animals and used it to shore up their own ideas.

Although the fruit of ornamental varieties of cherry is usually inedible, the Japanese pickle the blossoms in plum vinegar. The pickle is used with wagashi (a traditional Japanese sweet) and with anpan, which is a kind of Japanese doughnut.

Salt-pickled cherry blossoms in hot water produce a kind of tea called sakurayu, which is drunk at festive events.

The Latin species name ‘subhirtella’ means ‘slightly hairy’, apparently a reference to the young wood. I shall have to look more closely later in the year to see if the plant has a tendency to shagginess.

Although it hasn’t been cold here in London, it has felt like a very long winter, and of course we are not out of the dark yet. But it is rather cheering to see something flowering when it should, rather than months early, and if any bee were foolish enough to venture out when it gets a little warmer at least there will be something for it to feed on. I like to think that maybe the collective spirits of all the people buried in the cemetery derive some pleasure from the flowers as well. At the very least, this early cherry blossom is something beautiful for the visitors to the cemetery to gaze upon when their mood is at its lowest. Let us never underestimate the solace that nature can provide.

Photo Credits

Photo One: By Sakaori (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Two: “Sakura yu2” by Suguri F – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sakura_yu2.jpg#/media/File:Sakura_yu2.jpg

Photo Three:”和菓子PA100093″ by Akiyoshi’s Room – Akiyoshi’s Room. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E5%92%8C%E8%8F%93%E5%AD%90PA100093.jpg#/media/File:%E5%92%8C%E8%8F%93%E5%AD%90PA100093.jpg

Photo Four: “Sakura yu” by Suguri F – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sakura_yu.jpg#/media/File:Sakura_yu.jpg

All other photos copyright Vivienne Palmer

 

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…..

Dear Readers, wherever there is a shady patch of woodland in London, you are pretty much sure to find this plant advancing enthusiastically among the tree roots. It is often planted in ‘impossible’ garden sites, where the soil is too heavy, or the shade too dense, and before long it will be peeping under the fence and looking hopefully at the more enticing spaces in your neighbour’s patch. What a bold adventurer it is, unwilling to be contained, and so subtle when not in flower that you are unlikely to notice it until you have a substantial patch.

The flowers of the Greater Periwinkle are naturally a most delicious lilac-blue, with five petals and an upside-down pentagon in the middle. It has evergreen foliage, and the buds are twisted like screwed-up handkerchiefs before unfurling like ballerinas. The name ‘Vinca’ comes from the Latin vincire, meaning ‘to bind’, but although this plant is a vine it is a creeper and sprawler rather than a true strangler like bindweed. En masse, the flowers look very dynamic to me, like a mass of little revolving windmills.

Greater Periwinkle was first recorded in the UK in 1597, and is originally from the Mediterranean. However, by 1650 it was seen in the wild, and has not looked back since. Needless to say, it is classified as a noxious weed in the USA, Australia and New Zealand.

Why the name periwinkle though? Periwinkle is a shade of lilac-blue, but I suspect this may have been named for the plant, rather than the other way around.  Certainly, even in Chaucer’s time the plant was known as the Perwynke.

Richard Mabey, in Flora Britannica, suggests that because the Periwinkle was used for making funereal and celebratory wreathes, it might have given its name to the Periwig. The wreathes, which resembled the twining habit of the plant, may have reminded people of the   complex ‘periwigs’ worn by fashionable folk in Charles II’s time, and by judges and barristers to this day. I leave it to you to imagine what the wreathes must have looked like if the splendid wig below is anything to go by.

On the Plantlives website, Sue Eland tells us that in Britain convicted criminals wore garlands of Greater Periwinkle on their way to the gallows, and in Wales it was said that if you dug up a plant which was growing on a grave, you should be prepared to be haunted by the occupant. It has the vernacular name of ‘Sorcerer’s Violet’, for its use as a love philtre, and also its use in exorcism. In Germany, it is known as the ‘flower of immortality’.

The Poison Garden website reports how, in the 16th Century book ‘the boke of secretes of Albertus Magnus of the vertues of Herbes, Stones and certaine beastes’, Greater Periwinkle can be used to produce love between a man and his wife. As the remedy involves powdering the plant, mixing it with leeks and earthworms and adding it to food, I suspect that couples counselling may be more pleasant, if not as efficacious.

Furthermore, Poison Garden reports that the plant is said by the Apuleius Platonicus to be the first plant to choose to:

‘…combat sickness brought on by the Devil, protect against snakes and other wild beasts as well as being an antidote to many poisons. If you carry it with you, you will be prosperous and well received by strangers.’

Greater Periwinkle has been used in herbal medicine as an astringent, and for afflictions that involve ‘unnatural’ bleeding, such as piles, nose bleeds and painful/heavy periods.

I was very happy to see this plant in flower in the garden outside the Whittington Hospital where my mother was staying a few weeks ago. It seems to combine both diffidence and vigour, an unusual combination, and it reminded me of the persistence and resilience of living things, even in the unlikely surroundings of a north London hospital, right on a main road, on a blustery January day.

Update on Mum

For those readers who have been following the saga of my Mum’s stay in hospital, I’m pleased to report that she’s home in Dorset and getting better every day! We have carers coming in three times a day at the moment, but I suspect if I don’t watch it Mum will soon be making tea for them instead of the other way round. Thanks to all of you for your support through the past few weeks, it meant a lot to me and to Mum to know that so many folk were rooting for her.

Photo Credits

Photo One – “Vinca major NS” by JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vinca_major_NS.jpg#/media/File:Vinca_major_NS.jpg

Photo Two – Forest & Kim Starr [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Three – “Vinca major NS” by JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vinca_major_NS.jpg#/media/File:Vinca_major_NS.jpg

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…..

Dear Readers, when I was a little girl growing up in the East End of London, we used to have an allotment in Manor Park, in the shadow of the gas holders. Pot Marigold was one of the first plants that I ever grew from seed, and so I was very happy to see it along by the entrance to Cherry Tree Wood. This plant has escaped, of course, or might even be the result of some sneaky guerilla gardening, but its bright face was still welcome on such a drear and blustery day, especially as I was sneaking a few moments between hospital visits. For those of you have been following the story of my Mum’s chest infection, she is probably coming out on Thursday, so keep your fingers crossed for me please!

This member of the daisy family probably originated from Southern Europe, but it has been in cultivation for so long that its precise origins are unknown. The name ‘marigold’ is actually a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon word for the Marsh Marigold, which was merso-meargealla, a bit of a mouthful I’m sure you’ll agree. It was only later that the name was thought to be derived from ‘Mary’s Gold’. The colour of the blooms meant that it was also associated with Queen Mary, wife of William of Orange, during the 17th century.

Like all daisies, the flowerhead consists of disc florets (in the photo above, the dark middle bit) and ray florets (what we normally think of as the petals). So, what looks like a single flower is actually a mass of tiny individual flowers. The flowers can appear all year round if the conditions are not too cold, and when planted en masse, Pot Marigold can create a very fine prairie effect, as in the photo below, of an unidentified park planting.

The second part of the plant’s name, officinalis, means ‘of or belonging to an officina’ – an officina means a monastery storeroom where the herbal remedies were stored. Hence, this is a plant with a long history of medicinal use. Even today you can wander into any chemist and buy Calendula cream, to use with itchy, flaky or sensitive skin, but historically its uses have included the treatment of everything from catarrh to toothache, smallpox to painful periods. During the American Civil War, the plant was used as a salve for open wounds.

There is something about its bright, sunny flowers that seems healthful and cheering, and it has a reputation as a lucky plant. A pot of marigolds in the house is thought both to bring happiness and to provide protection against ill fortune.

Marigold petals have been used as a dye, both for cloth and for hair and also to provide the yellow colour for cheese. They are a cheap alternative to saffron if you want yellow food, and in Denmark the flowers have long been grown as cattle fodder. Recently I noticed that Marks and Spencer were selling little plastic tubs of edible flowers, including marigolds, for brightening up desserts and providing a blast of orange amongst the green leaves of a salad. This truly is a plant with many uses.

As the Pot Marigold is so easy to grown, it has tempted gardeners to develop hundreds of different cultivars. In some, the ray florets have replaced the disc florets to give a ‘double’ flower.

Some are yellow rather than the natural orange.

And some have a rather attractive sunburst effect on their petals.

But the one that I love the most is the basic Pot Marigold, the one that I can imagine growing all those years ago in a monastery garden.

Photo Credits and Resources

Many thanks as always to Sue Eland’s Plantlives website, an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the relationship between human beings and their plant neighbours.

Photograph (1)   © Copyright Jonathan Billinger and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Photograph (2) By Fanghong (Self-photographed) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photograph (3) – Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/marigold-petals-591032/

Photograph (4) – Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/marigold-calendula-officinalis-237828/

Photograph (5 ) By Paul Hermans (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photograph (6) – By Rillke (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Photograph (7) – Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/marigold-calendula-officinalis-179032/

Photograph (8) –  Jacob Sturm) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

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…..

Dear Readers, while I was passing All Saints’ Church on Durham Road in East Finchley today, I noticed that, despite everyone’s efforts, the Creeping Comfrey had crept back along the fence that edges the church garden. A few years ago there was a whole bed of the plant, its red buds and cream flowers nodding under the assault of what seemed like a hundred bees. It is a glorious plant, but one that has something of a tendency to take over. Last time I looked, someone had dug it up. But not, apparently, all of it, because here it is again, flowering in December ( a whole three months early).

I have written previously about Common Comfrey which is a much taller, rangier plant. This little chap only grows to about 40 centimetres tall, and, as my Harrap’s Wild Flower guide states, ‘spreads aggressively via sprawling leafy runners that root at the nodes’. The buds are a pinky red colour, which soon turns to creamy-white bells. I wonder why, though, it was called ‘grandiflorum’? It is to my mind a most modest little plant, and one that I am tempted to try to grow under the trees in my north-facing garden where nothing much thrives. It is often seen in churchyards (as here) and in shady places, so maybe it would feel right at home.

Unlike Common Comfrey, this plant is originally from the Caucasus and was first grown in gardens in the late 19th Century. By 1898 it had ‘jumped the fence’ and was growing in the wild. Like Common Comfrey, however, it can be used as a green manure, or rotted down as a liquid fertilizer, and there seems to be some agreement that the leaves can be used for external poultices for sprains and other injuries – after all, one vernacular name for the whole of the comfrey family is Knitbone, as the root was once grated and used as a kind of Plaster of Paris.

Another name for Creeping Comfrey specifically is ‘Cherubim and Seraphim’, maybe because  the fat pink buds  look like cherubs, and the white flowers resemble the robes of angels. . So, another appropriate ‘weed’ for the festive season!

Creeping Comfrey is such a useful plant that it has spawned a number of ‘domesticated’ varieties, such as ‘Hidcote Blue’ and ‘Goldsmith’, pictured below. As usual, though, I confess to preferring the unadulterated version. We constantly think we can improve on nature, and we are so rarely right.

This will be the last post before 2016 headbutts its way through the door. I wish you all a happy, healthy and inspired New Year, and hope that it brings you what you most need. See you next year!

Photo Credits

Goldsmith variety – Leonora Enking – https://www.flickr.com/photos/33037982@N04/4557977817

Hidcote Blue variety – By Lotus Johnson https://www.flickr.com/photos/ngawangchodron/16958103029

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…..

Dear Readers, on this last Wednesday before Christmas it was impossible to resist the temptation to feature a plant with a Biblical theme. And what should I find growing in the car park behind All Saints Church on Durham Road in East Finchley than a patch of Yellow Archangel (Lamiastrum galeobdolon argentatum). There are two forms of this plant: the one in the photograph with the silvery patches on its leaves is the cultivated variety, but the green-leaved variety is a native plant, and an indicator of ancient hedgerows and woods. However,  the silver-leaved garden variety is also cropping up in much wilder settings, such as the hedgerow behind my Aunt Hilary’s house in Somerset. In fact, the cultivated variety of the plant is now on Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, which makes it illegal to grow it in the wild. The problem is that it spreads rapidly, and can impact on other, less robust plants. In the picture below, however, it seems to be fairly well integrated with the Goosegrass and the Wild Garlic (not that you would want to go petal to petal with either of these two bruisers).

The flowers of Yellow Archangel, as with all of the dead-nettles, are exquisite when viewed up close. They have co-evolved with the bees that pollinate them- the ‘hood’ of the plant bows down when a heavy insect lands, anointing the animal’s back with pollen, while the lower lobe acts as a landing platform. It amuses me to think how upset many Victorians were when evolution began to clarify the relationship between flowers and pollinators: previously, it was thought that the beauty of blossom was all about appealing to the human senses. In fact, as we now know, it’s all about ensuring the continuance of both plant and bee, an exquisite relationship that has developed over millenia. We are not the centre of the universe, after all.

The Latin species name for Yellow Archangel, galeobdolon, means ‘to smell like a weasel’, as apparently this is what the scent of the crushed leaves resembles. The plant also has the vernacular name of ‘Weasel Snout’.  I have never had the opportunity to catch a whiff of weasel, and I suspect that they are few and far between in my north London half mile territory. Nevertheless, here is a picture of one, because it’s Christmas, and what a gift this bright-eyed little predator is.

Yellow Archangel is closely related to both White Dead-nettle and Red Dead-nettle, but Culpeper tells us that for ulcers and sores, Yellow Archangel is more efficacious than the others.

Why Archangel, though? This name is used for many of the dead-nettle varieties, and Richard Mabey suggests that this may be because the plants have no stings. I wonder if there is also something rather angelic about the shape of the flowers, if you squint a little. I particularly love the Glaswegian name for the garden variety with its silver leaves – ‘Aluminium Archangel’. This sounds to me like a name for a piece of civic sculpture, maybe like the one below, at the N1 shopping centre in Angel, Islington.

So, dear readers, by the time I publish my next piece Christmas will be over for another year. I wish those of you who are celebrating time to rest and reflect and recharge in the midst of the maelstrom that the festive season has become, and to all of you I send my hopes for a peaceful spirit, an inspired heart and a healthy body with which to meet the year ahead.

Photo Credits

Yellow Archangel in flower – “Gele dovenetel DSCF3599” by Teun Spaans – Self made picture. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gele_dovenetel_DSCF3599.JPG#/media/File:Gele_dovenetel_DSCF3599.JPG

Wonderful Weasel – “Mustela nivalis -British Wildlife Centre-4” by Keven Law – originally posted to Flickr as On the lookout…. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mustela_nivalis_-British_Wildlife_Centre-4.jpg#/media/File:Mustela_nivalis_-British_Wildlife_Centre-4.jpg

Angel Wings Sculpture – By Chris McKenna (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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…..

Dear Readers, a few years ago my husband and I went on holiday to  Jersey. The weather was glorious, and  one of my strongest memories is of the tropical coconut scent of the waist-high gorse that grew on the clifftops, and the sound of the ripe seedpods popping. So imagine my surprise at finding a small cluster of plants in flower on a rainy day in north London. Although there is a saying that ‘when the gorse is in flower, kissing’s in season’ I suspected that the plants would surely take a break in December, but no. And what a joy it is to see those butter-yellow flowers speckled with raindrops among all the mud and dying foliage of other, less enterprising plants.

Common gorse is a member of the Fabaceae or pea family, and like all members of its family helps to fix nitrogen in the soil and so to improve fertility. As a long-living, hardy, native plant, it has been used for a variety of purposes. Some relate to its prickliness – it can make a very effective hedge, spiky and long-lasting. Washing can be hung out to dry on gorse bushes, the spikes acting as pegs. Chopped gorse has been used as a mulch over germinating peas and beans to deter pigeons and mice. And the impenetrable thickets that the plant forms are great habitat for all manner of small mammals and nesting birds.

Despite its coarseness and abundance of spines , gorse has been used as food for cattle and horses, especially in north Wales where other sources of fodder may have been hard to come by. The plants are usually bruised in gorse-mills to soften them before being fed to the livestock. Humans have eaten gorse too – the pickled buds can be used like capers, and the flowers can be added to vodka or gin to flavour the spirit.

Pliny stated that branches of gorse could be placed in a stream in order to capture any particles of gold in the water, an ancient version of gold-panning.

Gorse has also had a long association with fire. It was used as firewood, particularly for baking, and was so popular that bye-laws were instituted to ensure that not too much was taken – Richard Mabey reports that under the 1820 Enclosure Act, the parishioners of Cumnor Hurst were allowed to harvest as much gorse ‘as they could carry on their backs’. In spite of its tough nature, gorse is not completely frost-hardy, and a particularly vicious winter can put paid to great tracts of the plant on open ground. It was therefore necessary to husband it as a resource, and to take only what was needed. Sustainability is not a new idea at all, but for most of the history of mankind has been seen as an obvious necessity. It’s only recently that we seem to have developed the idea that natural resources are never-ending.

Once burned, the ashes from gorse were used as an excellent fertilizer, or mixed with clay to form soap.

Gorse is normally a plant of open grassland (the very word ‘gorse’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘gorst’, meaning wasteland) and as such is subject to fires caused either accidentally (by lightning strike) or by deliberately in order to clear the land of old gorse bushes. As a fire-climax plant, gorse is adapted to these occurrences, and responds by putting out new green shoots, which can be used as softer fodder. In the right conditions, a single gorse bush can live for over 30 years.

In spite of its long flowering season, gorse has always been associated with the spring, and with the return of the sun. Gorse fires were set on the hillsides in at spring equinox, and burning brands of the plant were carried around the cattle herds to ensure their good health for the following year.  In Ireland, gorse was said to protect against witches, and it was also said that if you wore a sprig of gorse you would never stumble. In Scotland, it is said that Edinburgh will fall if the gorse does not come into flower. In Dorset and Somerset, however, it was unlucky to bring a sprig of the plant indoors, as if you did so a coffin was sure to follow shortly in the opposite direction. It is the sure sign of a plant that has been our companion for a long time that such a variety of beliefs has sprung up.

For me, gorse means heat, and skylarks singing, and a lizard skittering across a sandy path. It was not something that I expected to see today, one of those Sundays when the sun barely seems to get above the horizon before it sinks down again, exhausted. But what a joy it was to see those golden buds, and to remember that summer afternoon, something that I hadn’t thought about for years. My personal history seems to be written in plants and animals, each of them a talisman of a time and place.

Resources used in this post:

Flora Britannica by Richard Mabey – the best compendium of plant lore every published in my opinion. Endlessly interesting.

The Plant Lives website by Sue Eland – a gathering together of worldwide plantlore. Especially useful where plants have become naturalised  outside the UK, and are being used by local people

The A Modern Herbal website – all manner of medicinal, culinary and other uses for British plants.