Dear Readers, Yarrow is such a common plant (it’s in flower pretty much every month of the year), and in its natural state it is a shy and retiring white flower. However, it has spawned a whole raft of brightly coloured cultivars, usually called ‘Achillea’ in garden centres. Even the wild plant can often be found in various shades of pink, and I’m noticing cultivars in rusty orange and bright yellow. Hoverflies in particular seem to love those easy, open flowers – they don’t have the specialised equipment needed for dealing with a foxglove or a phlomis, but they will very happily while away the hours on a yarrow flower, regardless of colour.

But I am most delighted because Yarrow has been in flower in my ‘meadow’ next to the pond (aka the smallest meadow in East Finchley). It makes me feel as if I have a few metres of genuine sward, and I’ve noticed that the froglets are enjoying having an easy exit from the pond too. There’s something so deliciously lush and green about this tiny patch of turf, and it’s stayed that way even though it’s been such a dry year. North-facing gardens have their problems, but also their advantages, like most things.

Yarrow was one of my very first ‘Wednesday Weeds’, so let’s journey back to 2014 and see what was going on then.

As I squelched womanfully around the edge of the playing fields at Coldfall Wood on Monday, I was forcefully reminded that most of the soil of London is clay. The whole area was a slippery, claggy mass. I could have picked up a handful and thrown myself a pot. A Golden Retriever hurled himself into a large puddle, and a crow hopped down to check out the new water features that had appeared after the previous night’s heavy rainfall.

I was looking for something interesting to share with you all. Something with berries, or interesting foliage. Something that hadn’t either disappeared or turned into a twig. And then I spotted these, flowering amongst the brambles on the sunlit side of the fields.

Yarrow is a plant of the northern hemisphere, which grows in Europe, Asia and North America. It gets its Latin name, Achillea,  from the Iliad – Achilles was said to have been taught the use of yarrow by his centaur teacher, Chiron, and to have always carried some with him into battle to staunch bleeding. Everywhere that it grows it has a long history of use as a medicinal herb. Some of its other names, such as Woundwort and Sanguinary, reflect its traditional use as a bloodclotting agent, but the flowers and leaves have also been used for everything from phlegmatic conditions to menstrual cramps. Humble the plant may be, but it seems to be a veritable medicine chest, and is even said to increase the efficacy of other herbs when it is used in combination with them.

In Asia, the dried stalks of Yarrow are used as part of the I Ching divination process, and in North America the Navajo use it for toothache and earache.

I associate Yarrow with areas of old grassland, where its delicate leaves form an important part of the sward, but quickly learned that it had an important role in the health of our agricultural land. Before we contracted our current mania for monoculture, Yarrow always formed part of the meadow’s plant community – it has extremely deep roots, which make it resistant to drought and helpful in cases of soil erosion, plus the leaves (which can also be eaten by humans) are rich in minerals and good for grazing animals. These days, it seems to be something of an outlier, growing at the edges of fields where the turf is allowed to grow a little longer.

The list of beneficial qualities goes on. Yarrow is excellent for companion planting because it attracts pollinators such as hoverflies who will eat many plant pests. Starlings use it to line their nests, and it has been shown to reduce the parasite load that the nestlings have to bear.

In the wild, Yarrow grows in three colour variations – white (as below), pale pink and dark pink. Many cultivated varieties exist, and are indeed ‘bee-friendly’, though not, I suspect, as ‘friendly’ as the original plant.

The name ‘Yarrow’ is said to come from the Anglo-Saxon word gearwe, which means ‘to prepare’ or ‘to be ready’. Many practices concerned its ability to ward off evil – it was burned on St John’s Eve (23rd June). This coincides with the Summer Solstice, so may be another case of a Christian holiday overlaying a much older tradition. Also at the Solstice, a bundle of Yarrow would be tied over a child’s cradle, or over the entrance to the house, to ensure good luck in the coming year.

As usual, I am gobsmacked. This unobtrusive little plant has had a millenium-long relationship with human beings all over the world. These days, most of us (including me) scarcely give it a second glance. Pushed to the edge of the field like so many plant species, it flowers on , even on an iron-hard December day. It makes me sad that so much of the plant lore that our grandparents would have known is being lost. It is so important that we recognise our place in a community that is made up of land, plants and animals, not just humans. In the meantime, the Yarrow waits on.

 

 

Dear Readers, I had a lovely walk in Darlands Nature Reserve in Totteridge on Tuesday. The Pendulous Sedge is probably one of the commonest plants, as it’s very at home along the streams and lake edge in the reserve. It has a certain elegance that I rather like, it provides lots of cover for froglets and over-wintering insects, and it’s an ancient woodland indicator, so it has a lot going for it. I thought it had disappeared from my garden, but this year it’s popped back up, and I’m not unhappy about it. It’s the foodplant of the caterpillar of the Twin-barred Dwarf Moth (Elachista gleichenella), a very attractive little striped moth.

The RHS website has softened its approach to this plant – it was previously designated as a ‘thug’, but there is now a greater recognition of how useful it can be, and how it can be controlled if it does start to self-seed in places where it isn’t wanted. Personally, I think it’s invaluable for anyone with heavy clay soil and a pond, and it’s certainly nicer to see something thriving in a habitat that suits it, rather than watching a plant suffer and die because it isn’t happy.

So, let’s see what I discovered on my previous outings with Pendulous Sedge, including a rather eerie poem…..

Dear Readers, Pendulous Sedge is one of those plants, rather like Teasel, that will stay with you forever whether you like it or not. As you will see from my original Wednesday Weed below, I have rather decided that I like it – it seems so at home beside the pond, and when its many, many children pop up in other places it only takes a moment to pull them up (though as you can still buy them in garden centres I think I should probably be potting them up and selling them on). It’s also worth remembering that this is a native plant that thrives in the very particular claggy clay soils of London (amongst other places) – I regularly see it popping up in Coldfall Wood, for example. If you look closely at the photo below, from 2015, you’ll see how at home it is amongst the marsh marigolds and valerian.

What I didn’t know when I wrote my original post is that Pendulous Sedge has been used in a variety of ways – its seeds are edible, and, stripped of their husks, can be used in bread or salads, or even ground  into flour. Robin Harford, of Eat The Weeds, uses the seed to make a kind of gomasio, where the seeds are popped and then ground with rock salt to make a Japanese-style seasoning.  However, as Harford points out, Pendulous Sedge can also be used for phytoremediation – this is where plants are used to suck up the heavy metals from soil/water, so it’s probably wise to make sure this isn’t the case before you go gathering the seeds.

On the Plant Lore website, someone describes how his grandfather used to make ‘horrible biscuits’ with Pendulous Sedge seeds – he describes how country people understood how nutritious the seeds were, even if they weren’t the tastiest.

The plant has also been used for rope-making  – those stems and leaves look as if they could make something  very robust.

Here’s a photo of the male and female ‘flowers’ that I describe in the piece below :  the shaggy ‘flower’ on the far left is the male flower, which produces pollen, while the other four ‘flowers’ are the female parts, which produce seed.

And look, here’s a sedge poem! My mother used to recite this by heart when we were little children sick in bed. I think she was getting her revenge for being kept up so late, because reading it now it’s a very eerie poem, not at all suitable for infants. Then, she used to sing ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ as well. I think my mother was a Goth at heart.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful – a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said –
‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed – Ah! woe betide! –
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried – ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

And now, let’s see what I had to say when I first wrote about Pendulous Sedge back in (gulp) 2014…

Dear Reader, I must confess that when a plant makes an appearance in my garden, I am inclined to leave it alone until I find out what on earth it is. Sometimes, this is a grave error (the incident of the Ground Elder springs to mind). On other occasions, though, I discover that exactly the right plant has appeared for the spot that it has chosen, and then I am delighted. The plant above is called Pendulous Sedge, and it has erupted like a green fountain in a particularly shady spot next to my pond, where everything else I’ve tried to grow has failed.

The name ‘Sedge’ is said to come from the same root as the Latin verb ‘secare’, meaning to cut, and the sedge family has been used for everything from papyrus to basket-making to boat-building. However, what I like about Pendulous Sedge is its grace and vigour. Four or five catkins dangle gracefully from each stem, like so many lambs tails – there are usually one or two male catkins at the top, with the female ones underneath. Pendulous Sedge likes cold, claggy clay soil, and so it has succeeded where so many of my fancier plants have folded up and died.

I note that opinions on the plant are divided. On the RHS website, it lists no fewer than 132 suppliers who will sell you a Carex pendula should you not have one simply turn up. On checking one nursery, I discover that three plants will cost you 9.99 GBP plus postage. I feel a momentary warm glow of satisfaction.

However, further on on the same website I notice that it is described as a ‘thug plant’ – one that can quickly get out of hand and run rampant all over the garden.

Harrumph. I suppose the question is this: do we want a garden in which the plants that grow thrive, or do we want to be forever coaxing, forcing and persuading plants to do well when they’d much rather be elsewhere?

Pendulous Sedge is a plant not only of watersides, but of ancient woodlands. The photo below is from my visit to Cherry Tree Wood last week, where I saw the plant growing happily in a damp hollow.

Not so long ago, the land where my house now stands was part of Finchley Common, an area of scrub and moorland that was notorious for Highwaymen right up to the Eighteenth Century. A gibbet used to stand at the end of what is now the road next to mine. I have no doubt that every gully and pond would have had stands of Pendulous Sedge, and when it pops up in my garden now, it reminds me that human settlement is a very recent thing here, and that the plants and animals still reflect the way the land was then. So, thug or not, it is welcome in my garden, for the frogs to sit under, for the dragonflies to rest on, and for all manner of creeping things to nestle into.

 

 

 

Dear Readers, the plant in the photo above is probably not what you visualise when someone mentions ‘Buddleia’, but here we are – Buddleja globosa has actually been a UK plant since 1774, whereas the commoner Buddleia davidii didn’t arrive until the 1880s. The genus contains over 140 species, and there are now literally thousands of cultivars.

Is it Buddleia or Buddleja though? My latest copy of the RHS magazine suggests that Buddleja was chosen by no less a figure than Linnaeus. The name was given to posthumously honour the Reverend Adam Buddle (1662-1775), who was an English botanist and pastor who created an English Flora that was never published. His herbarium and a copy of his book are now held at the Natural History Museum. However, Buddle never actually saw a Buddleja – his name was suggested by fellow botanist William Houston, who brought back the first members of the Buddleja family  from the Caribbean 15 years after Buddle died.

The RHS take a rather ambivalent attitude to Buddleja, in my opinion – having designated it as a ‘thug’, they are now praising its pollinator-friendly qualities. It’s true that there are lots more varieties now, and many of them are much better behaved than the two huge Buddleja that are going well in my front garden, ten years after my original post (below). In my magazine, the RHS praise Buddleja davidii for its attraction to butterflies and moths, and Buddleja x weyeriana for its popularity with bumblebees – this plant is actually a cross between the common butterfly bush and Buddleja globosa.

Another species of Buddleja that seems to be gaining in popularity is Buddleja alternifolia, the Fountain Butterfly Bush – it looks like quite a substantial plant, so I would be interested to know if anyone has grown it. Again, it seems to be popular with the pollinators.

And here is a poem, by Roy McFarlane, born in Birmingham of Jamaican heritage. As we’ve seen, some of the earliest Buddleja plants were transported to England from the Caribbean, and they bear the name of a man who never even saw them. McFarlane was Canal Laureate in 2022, and this is one of the poems that he wrote during this time. See what you think! I think that it would be wonderful to hear McFarlane read this work – its rhythms would surely come alive.

Come Walk This Way

by Roy McFarlane

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.

 

 

 

 

Dear Readers, in this sultry weather it seems only appropriate that there is crape myrtle in flower in East Finchley. But there are no cicadas, which, as I mention in the piece below, are the sound of the southern states in the US. When cicadas hatch, all the nymphs from a particular year and species tend to do so at the same time (a brood), leading to a crescendo of sound that reminds me of the sea on a pebble beach.

https://earth.fm/recordings/brood-x-periodical-cicadas/

We do (or did) have one cicada species in the UK – the New Forest Cicada (Cicadetta montana). As with all cicadas, only the males sing, but their call is said to be too high-pitched for most adult human hearing, though children can often hear them. Adding to the problem is the fact that, when adult, they climb to the top of tall trees in order to sing, Furthermore, they need still conditions and temperatures above 20 degrees celsius to perform. Sadly, no New Forest Cicada has been seen since the 1990s, but as we discovered with the stalked jellyfish recently, this doesn’t mean that they’ve gone, merely that we aren’t paying attention. Buglife, in collaboration with Southampton University, the Forestry Commission and the New Forest National Park, have developed an app which, like a bat detector, will pick up the sound of the cicada. Fingers crossed! They may not be the most attractive of insects to our eyes, but then they probably aren’t impressed with us either.

So, read on for a bit more about Crape Myrtle.

Dear Readers, the Crape (or Crepe or Crêpe) Myrtle is originally from India, China and other areas of eastern Asia, though I think of it as being a tree that is synonymous with the southern states of the USA. I was in Washington DC a few years ago, and between the singing of the cicadas and the flowers on the Crape Myrtles it felt very sultry. All I needed was a mint julep and I’d have been in my element.

In China, the tree is known as Pai Jih Hung, which apparently means ‘100 days of red’, after the plant’s long flowering time and red flowers (the pink, mauve and white varieties are cultivars). It was also known as the ‘monkey tree’ because the bark is smooth and difficult to climb. So I suppose it should be called the ‘no monkey tree’. Or possibly the ‘monkey puzzle tree’, except that we already have one of those.

But what is this tree doing in East Finchley, parked at the end of Huntingdon Road in the County Roads and blooming away to its heart’s content? A while back I mentioned that the council was getting much more ambitious with its street trees, and Crape Myrtle was one of the trees mentioned. It really is spectacular, and most unexpected. In his book ‘London’s Street Trees’, Paul Wood mentions that in previous years the tree was considered only half-hardy in London’s winters, but as climate change kicks in, it seems to be thriving. Crape Myrtle doesn’t flower every year, so when it does it’s a real treat.

The fact that the tree doesn’t flower annually has led to some brutal pruning practices (actually known as ‘crape murder’) particularly in the US. All the outer branches are cut off in the autumn, leaving just a stump. In fact, the tree will flower whenever conditions are right and it has the resources to do so, and pruning that hard leads to soft growth, which can attract aphids and mildew, and suckering from the bottom. Be kind to your Crape Myrtle, people! It will flower when it feels like it!

Crape Myrtle is a member of the Lythraceae family, which also includes purple loosestrife of all things. Who knew? I guess they’re both pink (though bear in mind that Crape Myrtle comes in a variety of colours, including bright red.

As far as pollinators go, Crape Myrtle doesn’t have a lot of nectar but it is said to have two types of pollen – the usual stuff, which is full of protein, and ‘false’ pollen, which is generated specifically to attract pollinators. As it blooms in September/October in the UK, it could potentially be a good source of late pollen for any bees who are still active. I shall keep an eye on the one on our street to see if anyone is popping in for a bite.

What I’ve found interesting from reading some of the legends about Crape Myrtle is how, all of a sudden, it’s associated with Aphrodite. What? This is a plant originating in eastern Asia and then heading to the US without so much as a stopover in Europe. What’s happened (I think) is that people are getting confused with a European plant that is interwoven with myth called Myrtle. This is a completely different plant, associated with love and marriage and all those other pleasant things. It is not, however, a Crape Myrtle, so enough already. This is where (Pedant alert) those so-called  boring, elitist Latin names come in so handy when we are trying to identify something precisely.

Back to Crape Myrtle. This really is an excellent tree for a small garden if you want something that has more than one season of interest (though for wildlife value I think there are better choices) – the bark of the tree is apparently very smooth (as mentioned above), and I must go and inspect the East Finchley tree to see what it looks like. The author of the photo below says that you have to actually stroke the tree to appreciate the smoothness (from the Wild in Japan blog, which is a very good read). In the photo below it looks rather like a more-refined London Plane, which is anything but smooth, as we know.

And then there’s the autumn foliage colour, something else for me to look out for later in the year.

Medicinally, Crape Myrtle is one of those trees that is literally meant to cure everything from diabetes to cancer. stroke to heart attack. A more reasonable assessment is given over on the Plants for a Future website, where it seems to be more use as a ‘drastic purgative’ (yikes!), as a paste for the treatment of wounds, and as a treatment for colds (if you use a decoction of the flowers). As usual, Bug Woman advises extreme caution.

And finally, here’s a poem by Evie Shockley, a black woman who grew in in the Deep South of the US. Here’s what she says about being ‘a southern poet’ –

I grew up: hearing certain accents and vocabularies and speech patterns that were the aural essence of ‘home’ or the audible signal of danger, depending; thinking that racism wasn’t much of a problem in other parts of the country; eating a cuisine that was originally developed under conditions of make-do and make-last; enjoying five- or six-month summers and getting ‘snow days’ out of school when the forecast called for nothing other than ‘possible icy conditions’; knowing that my region was considered laughable almost everywhere else; assuming there was nothing unusual about finding churches on two out of every four corners; and believing that any six or seven people with vocal chords could produce four-part harmony at the drop of a dime—and that all of this informs my poetry, sometimes directly and sometimes in ways that might be unpredictable or illegible.”

I love this, and I love this poem. See what you think.

Dear Readers, I’m off on a bit of an adventure this week (of which more soon), but I still had time to admire the hibiscus plants around East Finchley. There is a hibiscus tree just up the road from me, and I honestly thought that it was a goner last year, but this year it seems to be doing quite nicely, thank you.

And one of my neighbours also has a very nice shrub in their front garden. But the most impressive is this one at the Sunshine Garden Centre. Who knew that the flowers could be quite so enormous?

Hibiscus have suddenly become popular as street trees – Paul Wood (author of London’s Street Trees) mentions that Garden Walk in Shoreditch is a great place to see them, so any of you East Londoners might want to take a little toddle down there, I suspect that it should be glorious at the moment. The hibiscus is a small tree, but having the flowers close to eye level adds to their appeal.

There’s another poem in my original piece below, but here’s a haiku by Basho. I fear for many of us, the haiku form was spoiled by having to create them in poetry lessons and coming up with something less than impressive, but I have grown to like them with my advancing years, the way they sometimes burst into flower at the end. See what you think.

in the twilight rain

these brilliant-hued hibiscus

a lovely sunset

Matsuo Basho

Dear Readers, is it just my imagination or has there been a sudden burst of enthusiasm for hibiscus as a garden plant? Once upon a time I had to travel to the Mediterranean to see these exotic beauties in full flower, but on a wet Sunday afternoon I found no less than three different plants in the environs of the County Roads in East Finchley, and very splendid they were too. I suspect that the climate change induced warmer temperatures are suiting them very well, for this plant comes originally from southern Asia, with its long warm summers. Hibiscus arrived in the UK in the 16th century, and was at first thought to be unable to survive frost. Later, it was realised that although individual buds might be affected by sub-zero temperatures, the shrub itself was frost-hardy.

Hibiscus syriacum is part of a genus of several hundred species belonging to the mallow family, or Malvaceae.  In the UK the plant is also known as the Tree Hollyhock, but in the US it is also known as Rose of Sharon, a name that in the UK refers to a bright yellow member of the St John’s wort family. Yet again, we find ourselves divided by a common language, and I give huge thanks to Linnaeus for his system of nomenclature that enables us all to understand what we’re talking about.

I love the way that hibiscus flowers open, the petals swirling around as they open like a ballerina pirouetting.

Many hibiscus species (mainly the red ones) are pollinated by hummingbirds or sunbirds, but our plant, originating in China, is not. It is both self-fertile (i.e. each flower contains both male and female parts) and capable of being pollinated by insects, chiefly bees, who are attracted more for the plentiful pollen than for the nectar. Each flower only opens for a day, but in a good year the shrub will be covered in blooms for weeks, providing plenty of opportunity for pollen-hungry invertebrates.

Hibiscus syriacus is the national flower of South Korea, where it is known as mugunghwa, from the word ‘mugung‘ meaning ‘eternity’ or ‘inexhaustible abundance’. In the South Korean national anthem, reference is made to ‘Three thousand ri (about 1,200 km, the length of the Korean peninsula) of splendid rivers and mountains covered with mugunghwa blossoms’. It is not surprising that Hibiscus syriacus became the national flower after Korea gained its independence from Japan in 1945.

The leaves of Hibiscus syriacus are said to be a good substitute for lettuce, though a little mucilaginous. The buds are said to resemble okra (not necessarily a good thing in my opinion, but each to their own).  The flowers are edible, although it’s the dark red flowers of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis that are more usually used to make hibiscus tea. I must admit to getting a bit irritated with the way that so many herbal fruit teas use hibiscus as their first ingredient in order to bulk it out – I find the rather astringent flavour overwhelms everything else. You can also get hibiscus syrup, again, normally made from Hibiscus rosa-sinensis.  The ingredient is having something of a ‘moment’ in trendy restaurants at the moment, and to be honest I will be delighted when the moment has passed, and we can get back to normal food, like charcoal bread or aubergine icecream.

As you might expect, such a structurally-interesting flower has attracted many artists. I rather like this still-life by Dutch artist Nicolaes van Veerendael, painted some time between 1660 and 1691, and proving that a Hibiscus syriacus just like the one around the corner from me was flowering quite happily in the Netherlands over 300 years ago. Incidentally, the picture sold at Christies for £92,500 in 2014.

And for our poem, I rather liked this, by American poet Jim Ballowe who is, quite rightly, Artist of the Month for August 2018 at the Center for Humans and Nature website. Do have a look at his other work, too.

Remember that in North America Hibiscus syriacus is known as ‘Rose of Sharon’ and is thought to be the plant referred to in the Song of Solomon.

Lessons from the Garden

                         for Ruth 

                        1

The garden doesn’t give a fig for Solomon 

any more than we know what he meant when he said

that kisses are sweeter than wine. The white fly

sucking at the belly of sweet potato leaves

pauses to ponder neither sex nor text.

Remember that piece of fluff, that ancient ephemera

circling the Rose of Sharon, settling awkwardly

at last in the sun-warmed bird bath, 

how determined it was to continue on the wing again 

after we plucked it from its futile folly?

Think how the Rose of Sharon greets spring as a dead stick,

then revels through summer days in a pink pregnancy,  

each night dropping its spent blooms  

nestled like newborns curled in silk blankets.

 

                        2

In a month of spiders, butterflies, and hummingbirds,

in days of asters, mums, and Autumn clematis,

in sun-harsh hours cascading into velvet nights,

in lapsed minutes the sumac takes to redden,

the unexpected forever happens, and we,

thrilled to see the intricate web, the floating color,

the darting shadow, the many-petaled flower,

the diminishing light, are reassured by nature’s tricks,

the existent summer’s ephemeral exit,

fall’s hovering presence awaiting embrace,

geometrical designs in crisp skies,

the unmasking of trees, the sense of humor behind it all,

a stage whisper, the thought that we too

share this scene, waiting to go on.

Jim Ballowe

Photo Credits

Photo One by By JeedaGhazal – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64783810

Photo Two from http://www.mois.go.kr/eng/sub/a03/nationalSymbol_3/screen.do

Photo Three from City Foodsters [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

 

Dear Readers, the purple loosestrife is as good as it’s ever been this year – normally at some point the whole clump topples over, but today it’s standing upright and proud, and is visited by every bee and butterfly in the vicinity. It is such a splash of colour, and cheers me up every time I look out of the window.

And while looking for a poem, I found this very enigmatic offering from Keith Hoerner, who is the founder of the Webby Awards for blogs and other websites, and who has had his work published in over 150 publications. I love poems where I can picture what’s being described, and this one really hit the spot. See what you think, and then on to my Wednesday Weed from 2017.

The Lakehouse by Keith Hoerner

Deep below the lake’s murky surface, there sits—intact—a house. A two-story structure of Carpenter Gothic details like elaborate wooden trim bloated to bursting. Its front yard: purple loosestrife. Its inhabitants: alligator gar, bull trout, and pupfish. All glide past languidly—out of window sashes and back inside door frames. It is serene, and it is foreboding. Curtains of algae float gossamer to and fro. Pictures rest clustered atop credenzas. A chandelier is lit, intermittently, by freshwater electric eels. And near a Victrola, white to the bone, a man and a woman dance in a floating embrace.

Dear Readers, I have long grown purple loosestrife in my pond – its cerise flowers provide a welcome jolt of colour at the end of the summer, plus the bees love it. But this week, I spotted some in the newly-landscaped boating pond on Hampstead Heath, and so I decided that this interesting plant needed its ‘moment in the sun’.

It is a native plant, and as such has developed a whole range of relationships with other members of the ecosystem. In the UK, the leaves are eaten by the larvae of the golden and black-margined loosestrife beetles (Galerucella calmariensis and Galerucella pusilla).

The roots are munched upon by the loosestrife root weevil (Hylobius transversovittatus), who is eating a leaf in the photo, just to prove its adaptability.

And as if this was not enough, the flowers are eaten by the larvae of the loosestrife flower weevil (Nanophyes marmoratus) a most delightful little furry chap. I must admit to having a great fondness for weevils, with their ‘trunks’ and the way that their antennae stick out from the sides of their ‘noses’. And this is even allowing for the tremendous damage that vine weevils have occasionally done to my container plants.

What I think all this proves is that no plant is an island – the relationships between a flower and the creatures that feed on it can be extraordinarily complex. Indeed, all the insects mentioned above have been used as biological controls in places such as Canada and the USA, where the plant has reached pest proportions, squeezing out all manner of native plants. The advantage of the insects mentioned above is that they are so specialised that they prefer purple loosestrife even to other plants in the same family, so (in theory) there is no danger that they’ll go rogue.

In the UK, purple loosestrife is largely kept under control by its insect companions, and so it forms part of a tapestry of plants (except where it is outcompeted by newcomers like Himalayan Balsam, but that’s another story).

Let’s take a brief moment to admire its beauty. Plants of the Lythrum family include the pomegranate and the crape myrtle. What distinguishes all these plants is that the petals often appear crumpled, as if someone had scrunched them up.

In the autumn, the leaves turn bright red, adding a last blaze of colour.

‘Loosestrife’ is a literal translation of the Greek name for the plant. It has long been believed to have a calming effect: in classical times, it was believed that ‘if placed on the yoke of inharmonious oxen, it will restrain their quarrelling’ (thanks to Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica for this titbit). The name of the family, Lythrum, means ‘blood’, and ‘salicaria’ means ‘willow-like’, referring to the leaves. Individual plants have a very  elegant, attenuated appearance.

In the area around the Caspian Sea, the roots of purple loosestrife were used to tan leather, and it can also dye the hair blonde. The flowers produce a red dye with which to colour confectionary, and the leafy shoots have been eaten as a vegetable. For those with an abundance of the  plant, here is a recipe for Creamy Braised Purple Loosestrife and Mushroom Risotto. I note that it requires 2 litres of rabbit, quail or chicken stock, but I’m sure vegetable stock would do the trick.

Purple loosestrife also has a long and distinguished history as a medicinal plant, particularly in the treatment of diarrhoea and dysentery, and as an eye-wash. It is also said to be just the thing should you have a bout of the quinsy. I am fascinated by some of these older diseases: whilst my grandmother would probably have known what quinsy was, I had no idea, so off I went to do some research, and it turns out that when he was a child, my younger brother had a bout of this disease. Quinsy is a particularly nasty complication of tonsillitis, when an abscess forms between a tonsil and the back of the throat. If the abscess grows large enough, it can even affect breathing. I suspect that these days these things are picked up more quickly, but I can imagine how, in the days before antibiotics, something like this could fatal. As purple loosestrife seems to have a mild anti-bacterial effect, it might be that gargling with it was efficacious.

Purple loosestrife features in  John Everett Millais’ painting of Ophelia floating downriver towards her watery end. If you look at the right-hand side of the picture, you can clearly see a fine stand of purple loosestrife.

The justification for their inclusion is that ‘long-purples’ are mentioned in Gertrude’s account of Ophelia’s suicide in Hamlet:

 

Now, some botanists have suggested that the ‘long purples’ are not purple loosestrife at all, but early-flowering orchids, which also like damp, boggy places, and which like all orchids have tubers that resemble testicles. This would explain the ‘grosser name’ apparently given by those ‘liberal shepherds’. How interesting that the word ‘liberal’ in Shakespeare’s time meant ‘licentious, promiscuous and coarse’ (thank you to the Shakespeare’s Words website), in addition to its current meanings. Words slip and slide from one definition to another over time in a most interesting way. As usual, I digress.

As to which plant Shakespeare was actually referring to, I doubt that we will ever know for sure.

Incidentally, Millais’ painting originally included a water vole paddling along beside Ophelia, a  delightful addition even if it did rather distract from the tragic nature of the scene. Even without  the water vole, it received a most mixed reception when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1852, with one critic saying that it reminded them of ‘a dairymaid in a frolic’. Ruskin went even further, objecting to the Surrey location, and saying:

‘Why the mischief should you not paint pure nature, and not that rascally wirefenced garden-rolled-nursery-maid’s paradise?’

Ah well. Suffice it to say that these days the Pre-Raphaelites are back in fashion, and the painting, exhibited at Tate Britain, is worth at least £30m.The model, Elizabeth Siddons, caught a shocking cold through being immersed in a bath for several days. The water was originally heated with oil lamps, but Millais was so engrossed in his painting that he didn’t notice, and presumably poor Lizzie was too in awe to mention that she was getting hypothermia (she was only 19). Her father attempted to sue Millais for £50 for medical expenses, but eventually settled for ‘a lower sum’.

And, as you know, I like to end my piece with some poetry, and here is a most interesting piece by the travel writer Robert Byron . I would add that I would wish this for all children, not just sons. I would also add that I disagree with some of it, as you’ll see from my comments at the end. As an added ‘bonus’ (depending on your Royalist or Republican tendencies) you can hear the Prince of Wales read it here.

All These I Learnt

by Robert Byron

If I have a son, he shall salute the lords and ladies who unfurl green hoods to the March rains, and shall know them afterwards by their scarlet fruit. He shall know the celandine, and the frigid, sightless flowers of the woods, spurge and spurge laurel, dogs’ mercury, wood-sorrel and queer four-leaved herb-paris fit to trim a bonnet with its purple dot. He shall see the marshes gold with flags and kingcups and find shepherd’s purse on a slag-heap. He shall know the tree-flowers, scented lime-tassels, blood-pink larch-tufts, white strands of the Spanish chestnut and tattered oak-plumes. He shall know orchids, mauve-winged bees and claret-coloured flies climbing up from mottled leaves. He shall see June red and white with ragged robin and cow parsley and the two campions. He shall tell a dandelion from sow thistle or goat’s beard. He shall know the field flowers, lady’s bedstraw and lady’s slipper, purple mallow, blue chicory and the cranesbills – dusky, bloody, and blue as heaven. In the cool summer wind he shall listen to the rattle of harebells against the whistle of a distant train, shall watch clover blush and scabious nod, pinch the ample veitches, and savour the virgin turf. He shall know grasses, timothy and wag-wanton, and dust his finger-tips in Yorkshire fog. By the river he shall know pink willow-herb and purple spikes of loosestrife, and the sweetshop smell of water-mint where the rat dives silently from its hole. He shall know the velvet leaves and yellow spike of the old dowager, mullein, recognise the whole company of thistles, and greet the relatives of the nettle, wound-wort and hore-hound, yellow rattle, betony, bugle and archangel. In autumn, he shall know the hedge lanterns, hips and haws and bryony. At Christmas he shall climb an old apple-tree for mistletoe, and know whom to kiss and how.

He shall know the butterflies that suck the brambles, common whites and marbled white, orange-tip, brimstone, and the carnivorous clouded yellows. He shall watch fritillaries, pearl-bordered and silver-washed, flit like fireballs across the sunlit rides. He shall see that family of capitalists, peacock, painted lady, red admiral and the tortoiseshells, uncurl their trunks to suck blood from bruised plums, while the purple emperor and white admiral glut themselves on the bowels of a rabbit. He shall know the jagged comma, printed with a white c, the manx-tailed iridescent hair-streaks, and the skippers demure as charwomen on Monday morning. He shall run to the glint of silver on a chalk-hill blue – glint of a breeze on water beneath an open sky – and shall follow the brown explorers, meadow brown, brown argus, speckled wood and ringlet. He shall see death and revolution in the burnet moth, black and red, crawling from a house of yellow talc tied half-way up a tall grass. He shall know more rational moths, who like the night, the gaudy tigers, cream-spot and scarlet, and the red and yellow underwings. He shall hear the humming-bird hawk moth arrive like an air-raid on the garden at dusk, and know the other hawks, pink sleek-bodied elephant, poplar, lime, and death’s head. He shall count the pinions of the plume moths, and find the large emerald waiting in the rain-dewed grass.

All these I learnt when I was a child and each recalls a place or occasion that might otherwise be lost. They were my own discoveries. They taught me to look at the world with my own eyes and with attention. They gave me a first content with the universe. Town-dwellers lack this intimate content, but my son shall have it!

To finish, much as I like the piece above, I would add that ‘demure’ is not a word that I associate with charwomen on any day of the week, nor indeed with women, full-stop. I should add that I once had a blind date with a chap with no visible social graces or interesting conversation and who had forgotten to bring his wallet when the time came to pay the bill. As we were leaving, he gave me a quizzical look and said ‘I don’t think we should meet again. I thought you’d be more demure’.

If I’d been any less demure he’d have been flat on his back on the pavement, seeing stars, but the best I could manage was ‘Suits me fine’.

Oh, and incidentally, I don’t agree that town-dweller lacks ‘intimate content’ either. I think it’s all in the attention, and the patience, and the willingness to learn, wherever you live.

Photo Credits

Photo One (Beetle larva) – By Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Archive, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Bugwood.org – http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=0022078 http://www.forestryimages.org/images/768×512/0022078.jpg, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14325447

Photo Two (Weevil) – CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=263339

Photo Three (Flower weevil) – By Siga (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Four (Cooper Marsh) – By Saffron Blaze – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15287781

Photo Five (autumn) CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2317448

Dear Readers, my piece about buzz pollination and the Hypericum next door reminded me of the day that I found some St John’s Wort in the car park at East Finchley Station. I was still a plant novice (well, I still am but have a few more species under my belt now), and I was so excited to see this specimen. Clearly, I need to get out on a plant hunt more often – I’ve only seen a fraction of the plants that exist in the UK. 

As you may know, St John’s-wort is said to be able to ameliorate depression. I loved this poem, by Séan Hewitt. See what you think.

And now, let’s see what I wrote about this ‘Wednesday Weed’ back in 2015.

Dear Readers, last week I was exploring the car park at East Finchley tube station when I came across a plant that was entirely new to me – Perforate St John’s-wort. My copy of Harrap’s Wild Flowers describes it as ‘abundant, and by far the commonest St John’s-wort’. This may be so, but it’s fair to say that it’s a retiring and delicate plant, easily overshadowed by the more assertive ‘weeds’ that grow in the same habitat. It is easy to see that it’s a member of the same family as Rose of Sharon and Tutsan – it has five petals, a shaving-brush of stamen, and that butter-yellow colour that is so characteristic of the family. If you break a flower-bud, a reddish-purple liquid is produced.

But why on earth is it called ‘Perforate’? If we look closely at the leaves, we can see that they are covered in tiny translucent ‘windows’. These are resin glands, and are said to be responsible for the ‘foxy’ smell of the species, though I was not inclined to molest the small number of plants that I discovered to find out.

Although this is a new plant to me, it is a native of Europe and Asia and has a long history of interaction with humans. Richard Mabey (in Flora Britannica) describes how, since prehistoric times, this plant was burned on the Midsummer Day Fires that were set all over the country. It was believed that these fires would purify communities and crops, and Perforate St. John’s-wort was one of the ‘sun-herbs’ which were thrown into the fire, probably because its yellow colour was thought to strengthen the power of the sun, while the smoke from the fires protected the fields against more malevolent summer manifestations, such as drought and wildfires.

Another story, attributed to the peoples of both the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight is that if you accidentally stood on Perforate St-John’s-wort at night, you would promptly be carried off on a fairy horse from which you could not dismount until sunrise. By then, you could be anywhere, and would need to find your own way home. I find this such a delightful idea that I was almost tempted to creep back to the car park at dead of night with a thermos flask, some sandwiches and an Oyster card, just to see what would happen.

Later, as has so often been the case, the plant was absorbed by Christianity – the Feast of St John the Baptist is on June 24th, and so this pagan plant was renamed as a Christian one. The genus name Hypericum is supposedly derived from the Greek words Hyper (above) and eikon (holy picture), to describe the way that the plants were hung above icons on St. John’s day to protect the house against the evil eye. In a combination of the pagan and Christian uses of the plant, the flower-buds were gathered on 24th June, crushed and steeped in olive-oil, to produce a blood-red liquid that was called ‘Blood of Christ’ and was used for anointing.

The reason that most of us have heard of St John’s-wort, however, is because of its use as an anti-depressant. Reviews of the use of the plant have regularly indicated that it is more effective than a placebo for patients with major depression, as useful as standard anti-depressants in mild to moderate depression, and that it has fewer side-effects. It should be noted, however, that the studies performed in German-speaking countries (where herbal medicine is an accepted part of many treatment regimes)  returned much more positive results than those conducted in the US (where there is more reliance on synthetic medicines) (for more details see here). There is no doubt that this is a medicinally active and potent plant, and should therefore (as with all plant remedies) be treated with respect – it decreases the levels of oestrogen in the body by speeding up the rate with which the hormone is metabolised, and so may decrease the efficacy of the contraceptive pill. It may cause photosensitivity, and is also associated with aggravating psychosis and mania in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I do note, however, that all these are also potential side-effects of many standard anti-depressants. I suspect that the main danger of this plant is using it alongside conventional anti-depressant drugs, and hence doubling up the dose of psychoactive chemicals. It also interacts with many other medications, including statins and HIV treatment protocols. Even so, it is given several pages on the website of Mind, the main UK mental health charity, and many people swear that using Perforate St John’s-wort has given them relief from the symptoms of anxiety and depression. So much power in a plant discovered at the back of a car park in North London!

As with so many plants that I have discovered through The Wednesday Weed, Perforate St John’s-wort has proved to be a problem in countries to which it is not native, especially Australia and the US. It is poisonous to grazing livestock if ingested in large quantities (indeed in Russia it is known as Zveroboi, or ‘beast-killer’), and some of the side-effects suffered by humans, such as photosensitivity and mania, are exhibited in animals unfortunate enough to have dined extensively on the plant. It is said that one of the effects of the plant is to make the suffering animal run in circles, resulting in strange ‘crop-circles’. The poisoned animal may be terrified of water, or may become so obsessed with it that it drowns. Fortunately, in places in which it is native it is unusual to see Perforate St.John’s-wort growing in anything like the quantities needed to cause these effects, but see the photo below of the plant growing in Australia for an idea of how densely-packed it can become.

What a remarkable plant this is. Its chemical composition means that it can both cure and poison, relieve distress and cause suffering. Of all the plants that I’ve featured on The Wednesday Weed, it is the one that has given me the most pause for thought. Modern Western society largely despises the healing power of plants, and is disrespectful of their undoubted power to heal or harm. In many places in the world, only a manufactured drug is considered efficacious, even though it may be originally derived from plants. Thank goodness for the people all over the world who are curious and knowledgeable about their botanical heritage, and who are working to preserve this priceless information for generations to come. Now, we just need to make sure that we also preserve the plants themselves.

Photo Credits

Perforated Leaves – By Matt Flavin https://www.flickr.com/photos/plant_diversity/5259021048 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Illustration of Perforate St John’s-wort – By Prof. Dr. Thomé, Otto Wilhelm (www.biolib.de) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Field of Perforate St.John’s-wort in Australia – By Peripitus (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

All other photos copyright Vivienne Palmer

Resources

Flora Britannica by Richard Mabey

The Plant Lives website curated by Sue Eland

Dear Readers, after the excitement of finding this plant in relative profusion in Coldfall Wood at the weekend, it felt past time to resurrect this post from 2014, which is probably the last time that I saw wood anemone/windflower in the wood. Enjoy!

Dear Readers, it has been my great pleasure to spot this exquisite plant twice in one week. On Wednesday, I saw it in a tiny fragment of woodland in Milborne St Andrew, Dorset, when I was visiting my parents, and on Thursday I found a tiny patch in Coldfall Wood, part of my East Finchley ‘territory’. This plant spreads by less than six feet every hundred years, and so is a reliable indicator of ancient woodland – the plant’s seed is rarely fertile, and so it relies on root growth in order to propagate.

Windflowers are also known as wood anemones, grandmother’s nightcap, and, for more than one small child, ‘wooden enemies’.  It is said to have a sharp, musky scent on a warm day, which has led to another obsolete local name of ‘smell foxes’. The plant belongs to the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), and is native to the UK.

Although it’s a woodland plant, windflower comes into flower early while the tree canopy is still not extensive, like so many other plants in the family (winter aconite and lesser celandine come to mind). Windflower does not like deep shade, and the flowers will only open fully in sunshine, which is when their chief pollinators, hoverflies, are about. It is an ephemeral beauty, in flower for a short season and then disappearing until the next year. What a good reason for a brisk April walk in the woods! In the language of flowers, wood anemone stands for brevity, expectation and forlornness, so is probably not something that you want to pop into a bouquet for your beloved. Not unless you want a clip round the ear’ole, as my Dad used to say.

The troubled nineteenth century poet John Clare was ever a close observer of the plants and animals around him, and described the windflower thus:

‘What pretty, drooping weeping flowers they are!

The clipt-frilled leaves, the slender stalk they bear

On which the drooping flower hangs weeping dew!

How beautiful through April time and May

The woods look, filled with wild anemones!

And every little spinney now looks gay

With flowers mid brushwood and the huge oak trees.

John Clare, Wood Anemone

I wondered why the plant was called ‘windflower’ (and anemone means ‘wind’ in Greek). Greek legends believed that the flowers were the harbingers of the windy season of early spring, and Pliny stated that the plant only opened on windy days. The plant was also believed to have sprung from the tears of Aphrodite as she wept for the death of Adonis.

Like so many plants, the windflower has been considered a symbol of both good and bad luck. It was a symbol of sickness for the ancient Egyptians, and the Chinese consider it a flower of death. On the other hand, the Romans believed that if it was picked while saying ‘I gather this against all diseases’ and then tied around an invalid’s neck, it would provide a certain cure.

The plant contains a variety of toxins, and is poisonous to humans and livestock – Linnaeus mentions how cattle kept indoors over the winter would sometimes harm themselves by bolting down anemone leaves as soon as they got out of the barn. However, I can find no recent authenticated cases of anyone or any creature being harmed by a surfeit of windflowers, so I suspect that you would need to munch a lot of them.

Historically, the plant has had a variety of medicinal uses, such as treating headaches, ‘tertian agues’ and gout, along with leprosy, eye infections and ‘malignant and corroding ulcers’. Most of the treatments involved either ointments or chewing the roots: the latter would, I suspect, be most unpleasant, as the toxins in the roots are powerful irritants. Maybe it was a kind of ‘ordeal by plant’, at the end of which the sufferer would feel better because at least his mouth wasn’t on fire anymore. Anyhow, gentle readers, I advise you against any such activity, if only because the root you’d be chewing could have taken many, many years to grow.

I love the delicacy of these flowers. If you look at the petals closely, you can see a tracery of faintest lilac, and the butter-yellow stamen are a contrast to the green carpel in the middle of the bloom. They are snowy-white against the gathering gloom, racing to complete their life cycle before the leaves on the hornbeams and oaks above them shut out the light until autumn. They would be just the thing in my garden, as I usually say at the end of a Wednesday Weed. What a pity my garden isn’t ten times larger, so that I could accommodate all my new favourites!

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