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.

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 is a plant that most people would automatically think of as a ‘weed’. I found it growing at the base of a tree on my road in north London, and recognised it by the black blotches in the middle of the leaves (‘maculosa’ means ‘spotted’), and by the little hairs on the ochrea. I love learning new botanical words, and so I am glad to share with you that the ochrea is the tube that surrounds the stem where the new leaves emerge.

Some of the stems are red, hence the common name for the plant. This is a native perennial and a member of the same family as Japanese Knotweed (the Polygonaceae). It is rarely found far from human activity, and seems to flourish on our footpaths, by the sides of canals, and on cultivated land. It is said to hate lime, and to prefer acid peaty soils, but the one growing on the London clay that I saw seemed to be doing well regardless of what my plant book says.

So, what uses have been made of this inoffensive little plant? It is said to be good for treating rheumatism and, although not native to the US, the Iroquois tribe soon discovered its properties and used concoctions of Redshank for joint pain. They also rubbed the plant on their horses because it was believed to keep flies at bay. The Cherokee used it to treat pain and some urinary complaints, and, closer to home, it has also been used as a source of a yellow dye. In Ukrainian medicine, the plant is used for haemorrhoids and uterine bleeding, and also for colitis. It seems to me to punch above its weight in terms of benefits to humankind. So why, I wondered, does the plant have the alternative name of Useless? I found the answer on the ever-informative Plant Lives website. Here is what the author, Sue Eland, has to say:

‘In Christian lore one of the popular legends tells how Christ’s blood fell on the leaves of the plant as it grew at the foot of the Cross and this caused the dark triangular marks on the leaves. Another accounts for this marking by a very sad little story in which it was described how the Virgin Mary habitually prepared a special ointment from redshank and could not find any of the plant when she needed it. Later she came across some when her need was no longer urgent and in her annoyance not only relegated redshank to the status of a weed but also left an impression of her finger on the leaf. It was said that from then on the plant was the only one for which there was no use.’

I do wonder if this story was also the source of another alternative name for Redshank, which is Lady’s Thumb.

Redshank is said to be edible, but bland. However, it is a rich source of vitamins and minerals, as most wild plants are. There are apparently reports that eating it can cause photosensitivity (i.e. a tendency to burn in even moderate sunlight), and as it contains oxalic acid, like all the rest of its family, I would beware if you have a tendency to kidney stones.  I personally won’t be picking any Redshank from my road, where the bottoms of the trees are regularly sprayed with weedkiller and visited by dogs, but in case you fancy a recipe, here is one from the rather wonderful Eatweeds website: Redshank and aubergine spring rolls. Bon Appetit!

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, the streets of East Finchley are currently populated by a most exotic invader, and not a recent one either. Opium Poppy has been grown in the UK since at least the Bronze Age, and is widely naturalised in our towns and villages.The ‘wild’ plant has a lilac flower, as in the photo above, but garden varietals include blooms in red, pink and white, and even double-flowered varieties. However, Opium Poppy It is easily recognised by its greyish, waxy (glaucous) foliage, its heavy-headed buds and its distinctive seed capsule, which is a wonder in itself.

The Opium poppy is the root source of all the opiate drugs, including morphine, heroin, and codeine. It is the most effective painkiller for extreme pain that we have, and also one of the most addictive.  Its very name means ‘sleep-giving poppy’. The drug is harvested both by making slits in the seed-case and extracting the latex, and via ‘poppy straw’, which is the dried plant minus the seeds. Very little of the active ingredient is produced in the UK climate, but I did once have a boyfriend who optimistically grew a patch of the plants, lovingly  harvested the sap, smoked it and then threw up for two days, so let that be a lesson to us all. Please note that it is also ambiguously illegal to grow it in the USA (for an interesting story about Michael Pollan’s 1997 experience with Papaver somniferum click here ), and totally illegal in Canada, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and the UAE.

What a complicated history this plant has! The ancient Sumerian and Minoan peoples both knew of the medicinal and psychoactive properties of the plant. Much later, during the period 1830-1860, Britain flooded China with Indian-grown opium during the Opium Wars. This happened because Britain had a hunger for Chinese silks, porcelain and tea, but the Chinese were largely self-sufficient and needed no British goods. The balance of payments deficit alarmed the British, and so they started to export the drug into China. As the number of addicts grew, the Chinese Government started to impound the opium without compensation to the British.  This quickly escalated into war, by the end of which the Chinese markets had been ratcheted open, there were an estimated 12 million opium addicts in China, and the British had much improved their trade deficit.

Cultivation of the plant worldwide is complicated by the fact that it can be grown either for the illegal narcotics trade, or for the legal pharmaceutical trade. Indeed, a recent initiative by the International Council for Security and Development, called ‘Poppy for Medicine’ has suggested that poppies could be grown by Afghan villagers for medicinal purposes. Afghanistan is historically reliant on the income from opium generated by drug-trafficking, and also, ironically, has a shortage of opiate medicines for its own population. If controlled properly, the growth and harvest of poppies could help to alleviate both these problems, as it has done in areas of India and Turkey where the same strategy has been implemented.

Opium poppies also have less contentious uses. They produce the poppy-seeds for rolls and loaves, and for some truly delicious Eastern European confections, such as this Polish poppyseed cake. However, beware: a television programme called Mythbusters illustrated that someone could fail a drugs test after only two poppyseed bagels, even though the seeds have no narcotic effect. Certainly something to watch if you are a sportsperson.

As you might expect, a plant as powerful as the Opium Poppy has a wealth of folklore, and the wonderful Poison Garden website is a treasure-trove of facts. Here, I shall just pick a couple of my favourites:

• Vampires are compelled to count poppyseeds if they come across them, so if you are ever pursued by such a creature just scatter a handful of seeds about to ensure you can make your getaway.
• The phrase ‘hip’ (as in ‘cool’) is not so ‘hip’ anymore, but it came from the phrase ‘being on the hip’, i.e. lying on one’s side smoking opium in an opium den.
• Hiding poppyseeds in a bride’s shoe will make her infertile
• Scattering poppyseeds around the bed on St Andrew’s night would ensure a dream of one’s future husband
• Eating a cake made with poppyseeds on New Year’s Eve would provide abundance for the year to come.

It interests me that the sedative effects of morphine on humans are not shared with other members of the animal kingdom. Cats in particular can become more excited rather than less when treated with the drug, and it is used with caution by vets with other creatures too. For people, though, the drug seems to fit our chemistry like a key to a lock, and this is what causes the dependency that can be such a terrible curse. Few plants that I’ve written about have such a capacity to help us, or to destroy us, according to the wisdom with which we use it. It is an unexpectedly powerful plant to find growing on a suburban street in North London.

 

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, there are a large number of white daisy-like plants in flower at the moment, but the combination of a faint pineapple-scent and a ‘squashy’ receptacle (the round yellow bit) tells me that this is Scented Mayweed. It is one of a large family of plants which have the word ‘chamomile’ included in either their common or Latin names – ‘Chamomile’ comes from the Greek for ‘Earth-Apple’, which seems to be a reference to its fruity scent. Scented Mayweed is also known as German Chamomile, and is an annual plant of bright, open places, often with disturbed soil. ‘True’ or Roman Chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) has a stronger scent, and is a rare perennial plant of damp turf and sandy, mildly acid soils. There has been a lot of confusion about these plants, but both have been used for their extensive medicinal and cosmetic applications. I was pleased to see Scented Mayweed in the Unadopted Road in East Finchley last week for another reason – its open flowers are very popular with pollinators such as hoverflies.

Scented Mayweed is described as an ‘Ancient Introduction’, which means that it arrived before 1500 (in this case from the warmer parts of mainland Europe and northern Asia). It has a venerable history: garlands of this flower were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, and it is included in the herbal traditions of no less than 26 countries. It has been used for many things: as a tea for relaxation, as an insecticide, as an anti-inflammatory and for digestive disorders. No wonder it arrived in the UK – it sounds as if it would have been an indispensable part of any healer’s medicine kit. It does contain a small amount of a poisonous chemical called coumarin, which could cause nausea and vomiting, and on the Plant Lives website it warns that this is what will happen if the flowers are boiled for ‘more than seven minutes’.  It can also be an allergen for those susceptible to hay fever, which is one reason why my husband doesn’t drink chamomile tea – he finds it sets him to sneezing.

Scented Mayweed produces a yellow dye, which is used in many cosmetic products for blonde hair. It is also a perfumery ingredient: the oil which contains the distinctive pineappley smell is dark blue, and is called Azulene. I am indebted to the Fragrantica website for this information, which also contains the interesting fact that Chamomile is a keynote in Dior’s Fahrenheit for Men.

In the book by Beatrix Potter,Peter Rabbit’s mother gave him a cup of chamomile tea to help him after his ordeal on Farmer MacGregor’s farm, and what a wise thing this was. When I’m feeling anxious, I find that chamomile tea helps me too. What I had never done was make the link with Scented Mayweed. Plants have such a lot to teach us, if we have ears to hear, and curiosity, and that most wonderful resource, the Internet.

 

 

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, I am always surprised at what turns up along the dark, gravelly path that leads to the side entrance of my house. Yellow corydalis, greater celandine, forget-me-not, buddleia, Mexican fleabane, Canadian fleabane, sow thistle and chickweed all put in an appearance, but this is the first time that I have spotted this little beauty – Broad-leaved Willowherb (Epilobium montanum). I have a garden full of Great Willowherb, but this plant passed me by. It has a delicate, shy habit that means that it is often overlooked but once I’d noticed it, I realised that it was everywhere.

The plant has four, deeply-notched mauve-ish petals, and the stigma in the centre form a distinctive four-lobed shape. The leaves are rounded at the bottom (hence the ‘broad-leaved’), and are practically stemless.  Like most of the other willowherbs, it’s native.

As with all the willowherbs, the soft leaves seem irresistible to insects, and the plant that I used for identifications was covered in enthusiastic greenfly. However, the genus is also subject to the depredations of some larger creatures, such as the caterpillars of the Small Phoenix:

the Striped Hawkmoth:

and, most spectacularly, the Elephant Hawkmoth and the Small Elephant Hawkmoth, shown below:

Plants of the Epilobium genus have long been used as a treatment for prostate and urinary complaints, and indeed a company which manufactures supplements made from willowherb has taken the genus name of Epilobium  for its company name (note that this is not an endorsement).  Although the showier members of the family are the ones most often used in herbal medicine, Broad-leaved Willowherb was singled out in an Austrian study as having a stronger effect than the others. While there is a lot of interest in Chinese herbal medicine and Ayurveda, herbal medicine in the West is still seen as something of a niche area. Maybe this is because when something grows all around us, it’s difficult to make money from it.

I love Rosebay Willowherb and Great Willowherb.  I admire the way that they can take over a spot of damaged and derelict land and turn it into a sea of cerise. But this little plant lurks in the interstices of the city, at the bottom of walls, in the crevices and the dark places, cheering them up with its mauve flowers and graceful habit. And, when the time is right, it fires its fluffy seeds with just as much vigour as its bigger relatives. It might be little, but it’s a plant with ambition.

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, Oxford Ragwort is one of those plants whose roots are so deeply entangled with humankind as to be rare outside of urban and industrial areas. Unusually, its path to freedom is well documented, and yet again Flora Britannica by Richard Mabey can be our guide. It was first planted in the botanical gardens of Oxford University, having been reputedly gathered from the rocks of Mount Etna. We have noted on several occasions that plants of mountain habitats often make excellent city dwellers, as they have a built-in tolerance for poor, scant soil and bright, dry, exposed situations. Furthermore, the genus name ‘Senecio’ refers to the way that the air-borne seeds resemble the white hair of an elderly person.  So, with its tolerance for city streets and its wind-carried seeds, it was tailor-made for urban colonisation. By the 1830s its seeds had wafted on to the old walls of Oxford, but it was soon provided with a mechanism for a much more ambitious journey. Like Buddleia, it was greatly aided by the railways, in this case particularly the Great Western. Oxford Ragwort loved the clinker beds by the side of the track, which maybe reminded the plant of its volcanic home, and its downy seeds were carried along in the slipstream of the passing steam engines. And so it advanced through England and Wales, providing a cheerful yellow chorus for mile after mile of the route. Indeed, on a recent trip to Surrey it seemed as if the whole trackside was a great flowerbed of Oxford Ragwort.

I have a great personal fondness for Ragwort, which dates back to the days when Bugwoman was Bug-girl. I was forever trying to rear caterpillars, and was particularly attracted to the yellow and black larvae of the Cinnabar moth. What child could resist these tiger-striped beauties? I found three, and spent the whole summer finding Ragwort for them to feed on. When, eventually, they turned into conker-coloured chrysalises, I put them in a big sweet jar containing twigs for them to climb up on when they emerged. I then put the jar into the cool darkness of the coal bunker under the stairs, and checked on them every single day.

The bright colouration of the caterpillar is a bit of a giveaway that the insect is poisonous, and it acquires this poison from its foodplant, which is any species of Ragwort that it can get its diminutive jaws into. The plant contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which can damage the liver of humans and some mammals, but it is these very chemicals which apparently excite the caterpillars, according to a study of ‘gustatory responsiveness‘. There has been a great deal of excitement in the UK recently about Ragwort being poisonous to horses. This is true, but a call to eliminate the plant altogether would be a disaster not just for the Cinnabar moth, but for the 150 other species of insect which eat it or feed on its nectar. For a measured response to the debate, I recommend this website, which lays out the issues for both horse and insect enthusiasts, and those lucky people who are both.

One day, I opened the door to the coal bunker to find that, responding to some innate signal, my moths had emerged. Two of them were hanging from the twigs, their wings like blood-streaked black velvet. One, however, had not made it. It had got trapped between the edge of the jar and the twig, and had died without its wings opening.

This was an early introduction to the unfairness of life. How could this creature have made it all the way to the door of adulthood and then died? The occasion called for a ritual, and so I dragooned my poor younger brother into a moth funeral. I put the moth into a matchbox lined with cotton wool, while my sibling did the hard work of digging a grave. We solemnly processed the ten feet from the back door to the graveside. I intoned a few words while my brother looked solemnly on. Then, we laid a tombstone which consisted of a tile from the recent demolition of our fireplace. On it, in wax crayon, were scrawled the words:

‘Born only to die’.

I was a child of Victorian sensibilities, as you can see.

When I see Ragwort, I am instantly reminded of those days of childhood, when time stood still at the sight of a caterpillar scraping endless half-circles from a leaf and when a small ritual seemed the only way to right the world when something went wrong. I still feel most truly myself when I am totally absorbed in the goings on of a plant or an animal – time seems to fall away, along with all my mundane concerns. The phrase ‘inner-child’ makes many people cringe, and yet I think that all of us are like Russian Dolls, with our earlier versions still alive and sometimes kicking. To me, there is nothing wrong with that non-judgemental state of child-like wonder, when we have no preconceptions but truly ‘see’. I’m sure it’s a better tonic than anything the doctor could prescribe, and with no side-effects other than a new bounce in the step and a softer, more open heart.