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 walking in the Playing Fields at the edge of Coldfall Wood a few weeks ago, I saw a plant that I didn’t recognise. This in itself is not so strange – of the plants that surround me, I know only a tiny fraction, though my knowledge is improving all the time. But this plant looked like a member of the pea family, but grew like a bush. It was all on its own, and had delicate mauve flowers. How had I missed it before?

I hurried home to my plant books, and discovered that I was looking at Goat’s Rue. It is a member of the pea family, and is a naturalised species – it was first introduced from the Middle East by 1568 and was found in the wild by 1640. In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey describes how it is extremely common around Sheffield, and how it might have spread:

‘A Sheffield miner told me that he remembered his father recounting how in the early part of this century horticultural traders used to work the poorer parts of the city suburbs selling garden plants which only just merited that description. They were aggressive species like tansy, Michaelmas daisy, feverfew and goat’s rue, all of which have naturalised widely in the city. He recalled his father purchasing Japanese knotweed and how friends were invited round to marvel at the spotted stem and attactive foliage and how the plant was later divided up for exchange’.

However, as I have started to delve into the history of Goat’s Rue, I have come to realise that this is no ‘ordinary’ weed. In fact, I’m starting to think that there is no such thing as an ‘ordinary’ weed, but this one is extraordinary. It’s Latin name, Galega, means ‘to bring on milk’, and it was used to increase milk supply in a variety of domestic animals, hence its common name. Nursing human mothers have also used the herb for this purpose, and a quick look on the internet shows that supplements containing this plant are available, along with recommendations for dosage using the whole plant. Personally, I would be extremely careful about using any plant that is known to have toxic effects (see below).

What fascinates me most, however, is Goat’s-Rue’s long association with the treatment of diabetes. One of the chemicals in the plant was long known to reduce blood-sugar, but the compounds themselves were toxic – they are said to cause ‘tracheal frothing, pulmonary oedema, hydrothorax, hypotension, paralysis and death‘. However a chemist, George Tanret, identified a slightly less toxic compound from the plant called galegine, and this was used as the basis for treatments during the 1920’s and 1930’s. The drug that is currently used to treat Type 2 diabetes, Metformin, is a synthesised form of the chemical that was discovered in Goat’s Rue, with the toxicity taken out. With two parents and a brother who all have diabetes, it makes me humble to look at this plant and realise that without it, they might not have had access to the drug that helped, initially at least, to keep their conditions under control. In a short paper in ‘Practical Diabetes International’ by C.J. Bailey and C Day, the authors have this to say:

‘Postscript of ironies

There are several ironies about metformin. In our high-tech era of drug discovery and development this first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes is little removed from a herbal remedy of the middle ages. Despite its chemical simplicity and detailed investigation, metformin continues to evade a complete exposé of its cellularactivity. While endless pharmacovigilance has monitored the safety profile of metformin, its natural ancestor,G. officinalis (known as Professor Weed in the USA) is a Class A Federal Noxious Weed in 35 states of America, and appears on the database of poisonous plants.’

This is not the only way that Goat’s Rue has been used. It has been used as a worm treatment for domestic animals, and also to treat plague victims. In the first case, I can imagine that its toxicity was a way of killing the parasites, providing the dosage was managed properly and didn’t kill the animal as well. As to the poor plague victim, I suppose that death by poisoning was the least of their worries.

The name ‘Goat’s Rue’ has been explained as either the result of its use to encourage milk production, or because of the unpleasant smell of its bruised leaves. I don’t find either of these ideas particularly conducive – I’d have thought that  a goat would be happy to be producing more milk for its kids (though admittedly not if it was stolen to feed humans), and the leaves don’t smell particularly goaty to me. But there we go. The reasons are lost in the proverbial mists of time. The North American nickname for the plant, Professor Weed, is said to be because it was originally introduced as a forage weed by the professorial body at the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station. Not only was it found to be less toothsome to the grazing animals than alfalfa, but it also ‘went native’ with a vengeance, hopping over the fence and spreading all over those wide open spaces. When a report that it had killed some sheep in Europe came in, an eradication programme which removed over 90% of the plant took place. Since then, it has bounced back, and the battle goes on.

Goat’s Rue has also been used as a replacement for rennet during cheese-making (and in fact yet another alternative name for the plant in the north of England is ‘Cheese-Rennet’). It is said to be useful if you are bitten by a snake. And, in experiments that no doubt resulted in the deaths of hundreds of mice, it has been shown to reduce obesity. Was there ever a poisonous plant with so many uses? And, furthermore, so many names?

In German folklore, Goat’s Rue is known as one of the Holy Hay plants, along with Sanfoin and Alfalfa. This is because it was said to be one of the plants laid in the manger in Bethlehem. When Jesus was laid down amongst the hay, it is said to have spontaneously burst into flower. And, whatever your religion, what a lovely image this is to end with.

 

 

Dear Readers, my call for any information about Rosebay Willowherb during the Second World War has produced this wonderful  photo, taken in 1948, from my friend and fellow blogger David Sweetland. Here’s what he says about it:

‘Attached is a photo my father took in 1948 to the north east of St. Paul’s looking across the area that is now the Barbican. A good view of Rosebay Willowherb in the foreground. Did not know the name of the plant until I read your post today.

I remember him telling me that this (along with many other plants) very quickly spread over all the bombed land across the City. The bombed and burnt buildings were quickly cleared leaving large areas with low walls and open cellars and the plants quickly colonised these.’

David’s blog A London Inheritance is both a celebration of the London captured in his father’s photographs, and a fascinating exploration of how it is today. I heartily recommend it.

 

 

Dear Readers, back in 2002 Rosebay Willowherb was named as the County Plant of Greater London by the charity Plantlife, and, with its long association with the capital and its familiarity to Londoners, it seems an excellent choice. But it was not always so, for this was once a shy, little-seen plant, its spread a result of two World Wars, aided, as with so many ‘weeds’, by the development of the railways.

I have a copy of a book called ‘Flowers of the Field’ by the Reverend C. A. Johns, which was published in 1913. In it, the good Reverend describes the plant as ‘rare, except as a garden escape’. And yet, as the forests were felled and burned to provide wood for the First World War effort, it suddenly appeared in great swathes of cherry-pink, a development that was watched with some trepidation. In his book ‘Weeds’, Richard Mabey describes how it was seen by the botanist H.J. Riddelsdell:

‘Beautiful as the plant is in its flowering season, when it is in seed it creates desolation and ugliness over the whole area’.

The plant is native to the whole of the Northern Hemisphere, and in North America it is known as ‘Fireweed’: Rosebay Willowherb is either more tolerant of scorched earth than other plants, or positively prefers it. This was to stand it in good stead during the Second World War, when it colonised the bombsites so successfully that the Londoners christened it ‘Bombweed’.

As is often the way with the Blitz, we now look back on it as a time of good spirits and plucky bulldog tenacity. Londoners are said to have seen this new pink plant, which few of them would have seen previously, as a sign of London rising from the ashes like a phoenix. I wonder if some people were also a little perturbed by this new ‘invader’ however, especially as they were right in the middle of fighting a human one. If anyone remembers these times, or remembers their family talking about them, I would love to know!

While all this bombing and burning was going on, the plant was further distributed, just as Oxford Ragwort and Buddleia were, by the spread of the railways, the seeds being happily blown along and finding the clinker and scree slopes of the embankments most amenable to growth. In fact, when I head down to Dorset this week to visit my family I fully expect my route to be a veritable carnival of past Wednesday Weeds, with all the plants mentioned above in full flower.

There is no doubt that Rosebay Willowherb (named for its colour and for its bay-shaped leaves) is a most attractive plant, with its pink and carmine petals. Bees think so too, which is another reason to be glad of its profligacy. Its leaves are also unusual: the veins do not go to the edge of the leaf but curl back on themselves in loops, as you can just about see in the picture below. This makes it easy to identify even when not in flower.

Rosebay Willowherb’s wide distribution means that has been used for a variety of purposes by many different communities. Here are just a few of them, from the Plantlives website:

• The Cree people of North America used the fibre from the stems as sewing thread
• The Kitasoo people used this same thread to make fishing nets
• The Quinault and Skokomish tribes mixed the white fluffy seed fibre with duck feathers to make blankets, and the people of the Klallam mixed the seed fibre with dog hair to weave cloth.
• The Blackfoot tribe rubbed the flowers on to their mittens and rawhide thongs to waterproof them
• The Tanana tribe used the flowers as a mosquito repellent
• The Thompson tribe regarded the flowering of Rosebay Willowherb as an indication that the deer were fat enough to be hunted, and for the Cree it was a sign that the moose would soon be entering the mating season.

Many peoples used Rosebay Willowherb as food – the shoots, leaves, flowers and roots have all been used, both as salad and as a potherb. In Alaska, it is used for everything from icecream to syrup, and you can find a recipe for Fireweed Jelly here. 

Monofloral (single plant) honey from ‘Fireweed’ is made in Alaska and areas of northwestern Canada, and is considered to be a premium product, slightly spicy and delicious.

In Russia, the flowers are used to make Koporye or Russian tea, which was exported to Western Europe as a competitor to Indian and Chinese tea during the 19th Century. It was fermented and dried in the same way as ‘real’ tea but had the advantage of being caffeine free. However, the East India Company was so threatened by the success of Koporye that they circulated a rumour about the way that the tea was produced, causing the trade to collapse. These days only a small amount of the tea is made, for local consumption.

Like Broad-leaved Willowherb, Rosebay Willowherb is also used in traditional Austrian medicine for urinary complaints of all kinds. In North America, it has been used for everything from boils to cancer. Maybe its rarity in the UK until the last century has restricted its historical medicinal and culinary uses here, but who knows what we will come up with in the future?

One inspiring use for Rosebay Willowherb is as a way of recolonising areas which have been damaged by fire, or even by oil spills. As it grows, it also provides nectar for any intrepid insects which venture past. In short, it is the most extraordinarily generous plant, capable of all kinds of uses and beautiful to boot. Long may its flowers herald the high-days and holidays of summer.

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 two wild Buddleia plants started to grow in my front garden, I had no idea that they would be quite so enthusiastic. The one next to the front gate wallops everyone who tries to get to the front door with a whippy bloom-covered stem, which is particular fun when it’s been raining. The one by the wheelie bins is at least ten feet tall.

But now that the lavender has finished flowering, it is the number one favourite of the pollinators around here. Have a look at this lot. The plant is also called Butterfly Bush, as I’m sure you know, and although I haven’t caught any photos of visiting Lepidoptera, it’s loved by every species from Cabbage White to Red Admiral.

Once the flowers have gone over, I will give both plants a healthy prune, and we’ll be able to access our house without having to go through a mini Tough Mudder assault course to get there.

Buddleia (Buddleia davidii) is originally from the mountainous areas of Hubei and Sichuan provinces in China, and was introduced to the UK when it was planted in Kew Gardens in 1896. It is named for the Basque missionary and explorer Father Armand David, who was the first European to see the Giant Panda, and who, in addition to his church duties, found time to identify no less than 63 species of mammal, 65 species of birds and and hundreds of species of plant which were previously unknown to Western science. In honour of his work, several species were named after him, including a very rare Chinese deer, which is known as Pere David’s Deer in the west. Several of the deer, which  were extinct in the wild,and survived only in the Emperor’s garden, were smuggled into Europe, including one animal which was ‘rescued’ by the good Father himself. As it turned out, it’s just as well that he did, because during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 all the animals remaining in China were slaughtered and eaten. The European animals were brought together at Woburn Abbey, and bred so successfully that eventually some animals were able to be reintroduced back into China, a rare conservation success story.

But, back to Buddleia. It’s a member of the Figwort family (Scrophulariaceae), a diverse group which includes such plants as Mullein and that little white-flowered plant you often see in garden centres, Bacopa. The grey-green leaves can look a little tatty late on in the season, but the glory of the plant are its flowers, long inflorescences of purple, lilac or white flowers which smell intensely of honey. I remember passing a boarded-up lot in Whitechapel, and being stopped mid-step by the sound of bees and the extraordinary perfume coming from behind the hoardings. When I peered through a gap, I could see a veritable Buddleia forest, the plants about twelve feet high, the blossoms bowed down under the weight of bees. No doubt this site is a block of luxury flats now, but then it was the equivalent of an East End watering hole for pollinators, and no doubt a refuge for other creatures too.

Each individual flower is ‘perfect’ – this means that it contains both male and female parts. The tiny seeds are very undemanding, requiring only the smallest patch of soil to germinate, and, like Oxford Ragwort Buddleia is likely to have spread along railway lines, its seeds caught up in the slipstream of trains. When I used to commute into Liverpool Street Station in London, the grim trackside was lit up with bush after bush of Buddleia, and as we pulled into the station, past the blackened Victorian walls which lined the route, an occasional shrub could be seen growing from a tiny crack in the brick work. I am sure that the poor soil and exposed location is similar to the scree slopes for which the plant was originally adapted. In its native environment, it has been christened ‘the Harbourage of Tigers’, but in my locality it is more likely to be cover for a neighbour’s cat.

Despite looking in all my usual books and perusing the internet, I could find no references to medicinal or culinary uses for Buddleia, and yet I have a feeling that in its native habitat those enormous sweet-smelling flowers must have been used for something – maybe to sweeten wine, or to make jam, or to adorn houses to keep evil spirits away. At the very least they are surely the favourite flower of some benevolent bee goddess, who will have her work cut out looking after her subjects at the moment, what with the sneaky reintroduction of neonicotinoids to the UK and the general decline in pollinator habitat. I imagine that she is polishing up her sting at this very moment.

I have several varieties of Buddleia in my garden – I am trying a few dwarf Buddleia in my containers, and also have a yellow-flowered variety where the blooms are spherical. But nothing attracts the interest of insects like these wild ones. They fill a gap at the end of the early summer-flowering plants, and before the late summer Sedum and Michaelmas Daisies really get going. I was interested to read that Butterfly Conservation recommends the planting of Buddleia in gardens as a nectar source, even though the plant has no value as a food plant for caterpillars, such is its value to adult insects. However, I would question the need to plant it, as if you live in an area where Buddleia grows wild, some will almost certainly turn up and save you the expense. If you are worried about your single plant turning into a Buddleia forest, note that the seed only ripens in the spring, so dead-heading and autumn pruning should keep it under some kind of control. If not, the seedlings are very easy to pull up. When I am Queen, I shall provide everyone with a Buddleia seedling to pop into their garden or grow in a pot, so that the bees and butterflies, for a few weeks at least, will have a honey-scented corridor of flowers to make their lives a little easier. In the meantime, if you don’t have one already, maybe you could consider finding one yourself? I guarantee you will have some very grateful six-legged visitors.

 

 

 

 

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, no sooner was I back in London following my holiday in Austria, than I galloped down to Coldfall Wood to see what had been going on. And it seemed as if everything had burst into flower while I was away, and was now finishing its reproductive cycle. For most animals and plants, it’s already autumn – summer might be just beginning for us, but the woods are silent, the queen bumblebees are already looking for hibernation spots, and these Creeping Thistles were already mostly transformed into puffy seedheads. But many insects are still appreciating their bounty – thistles seem to be amongst the most valuable plants for pollinators.

I imagine that few people would choose to cultivate Creeping Thistle, in spite of its wildlife benefits – like Groundsel or Sow Thistle, it’s one of those plants that looks a bit ramshackle and unkempt on the best of days. Furthermore, it is considered an ‘injurious weed’ in the UK, where it is native, and a ‘noxious weed’ in most countries to which it has been introduced. In Canada, it is known as ‘Canada Weed’, which is surprising as it is an alien species. The name ‘Creeping Thistle’ might imply a shy, diffident plant, but actually refers to the way that the plant surreptitiously takes over a field.

The problem is that Creeping Thistle is just too successful. It forms what are known as ‘Clonal Colonies’, like the one in the picture, where the roots send up multiple shoots and stifle anything else growing in the area, extending its range by up to 6 metres per year. It also sends out cloud upon cloud of fluffy seeds, although only 3% of these are viable, so the main ‘problem’ is with the rhizomes rather than the flowers.It is safe to say that it is not popular with humans, though other creatures may beg to differ.

The leaves of Creeping Thistle have been used as animal fodder for centuries, usually after being crushed to remove the prickles. The young leaves and stems have also been eaten by humans. The seeds are up to 22% oil, which can be extracted and used as cooking oil or to fuel oil-lamps, though I would imagine that it would be hard work for a small return.

Medicinally, Creeping Thistle has been used by the Mohican and Abnaki tribes for worms, by people in Northern India for fluid retention, and in the north of England, the stems have been used to treat cramp.

So, here we have the Creeping Thistle, a plant that is too generous with its roots and seeds  for gardeners and farmers, but which is a boon for birds and insects. Here on the edge of Muswell Hill Playing Fields, just beside Coldfall Wood, it is a-buzz with all manner of creatures, and  doing no harm at all. And, as the word ‘Thistle’ goes right back to Old English, I imagine that it has been a cause of back-breaking work for hundreds, if not thousands of years. We might just as well rub along as best we can.