Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren. 

Dear Readers, how I love winter aconites! Their butter-yellow flowers above the Tudor ruff of leaves always cheers me up. Alas, as my original Wednesday Weed post from 2017 shows, I have not had a lot of success in growing them in the garden, but nonetheless they are often found in cemeteries and churchyards, naturalising amongst the snowdrops in a delicious way.

In her piece on the plant, Rowan Jaines points out how the winter aconite was really popularised by Capability Brown, who planted great swathes of the plant in his landscape designs, so that there was something bright to look at all year round. You can see some flowering through the snow at Compton Verney, where the gardens were designed by Capability Brown, or at Audley End. Interestingly, Jaines mentions how although winter aconite originally came from France and Central Europe back in the late 15th Century it, like the snowdrop, have become regarded as an essential part of England, incorporated into our whole idea of what an early spring English garden should look like. We sometimes forget, I think, how managed and human-influenced practically everything in this country is, with nowhere that has been untouched by human hand.

Winter aconite has been through a fine list of name-changes. First known as winter wolfsbane, because its leaves and seeds were thought to resemble those of the poisonous wolfsbane (better known to us as monkshood), it was then thought to be a hellebore, and finally became a winter aconite after Richard Salisbury, an unorthodox botanist who spent most of his career arguing with Linnaeus about his plant classification, named it Eranthis hyemalis in 1807. The name was only accepted by the botanical community sixty years later.

Incidentally, the name Eranthis hyemalis is a kind of Latin/Greek mash-up, meaning literally ‘spring-flowering winter flower’. Confusion reigns!

And now, let’s pop back to 2017 when I did my original blog on the plant. Don’t miss the poem at the end.

Dear Readers, last year I decided to finally get my act together and plant some woodland bulbs. With the help of my husband I planted snowdrops and cyclamen, lily of the valley and bluebells, and some winter aconite. I had been hoping for a carpet of spring colour. Instead, I have exactly two winter aconites, and a small early crop of stinging nettles. Whether the squirrels have had the lot or they’re just late is anybody’s guess. So I was particularly pleased to spot this fine collection of yellow beauties in a church yard in Camden, not far from Regent’s Park.

Winter aconites are a member of the buttercup family, but they always remind me of tiny saffron waterlilies. In Suffolk (where they seem to be particularly abundant) they are known as ‘choirboys’ because the ruff of leaves rather resembles the neckline of a choirboy’s costume.  The plant came originally from southern Europe and was apparently first introduced to the UK in 1596. By 1838 they were recorded in the wild, and are now seen in churchyards and verges, usually close to human habitation. However, there is a legend that winter aconites only grow where the blood of Roman soldiers was spilled, which implies that either the plants are time-travellers, or they were here a lot earlier than their documented first appearance. This Roman connection was a source of inspiration for the crime novelist Dorothy L.Sayers, who moved close to a Roman camp at Bluntisham, near Cambridge when she was a little girl, and was delighted by the winter aconites. When her father told her the story, her interest in ancient Rome was triggered. Although better known for her Sir Peter Wimsey detective novels, she became something of a classicist, and would explore this in her non-fiction work ‘The Lost Tools of Learning’, which advocated a return to the skills of logic, grammar and rhetoric. I can’t help wondering if, with the current level of political argument, she might have had a point.

Winter aconites are not actually members of the Aconite family but on the ever-informative Poison Garden website, John Robertson explains that the leaves look like those of the true aconites. This might also be why the plant has a reputation for being poisonous: all buttercups are poisonous to a degree, but true aconites, such as Monkshood (Aconitum napellus) are among the most toxic plants in the garden. I have only been able to find two documented cases of death through winter aconite poisoning, The first was an elderly German dachshund with a history of plant ingestion. The other is from the Plant Lives website, and mentions the death, in 1822, of the unfortunate Mrs Gorst, who is said to have  harvested winter aconite tubers after mistaking them for horseradish. Suffice it to say that eating decorative garden plants is never a great idea for any creature, human or otherwise.

As one of the earliest flowering of all  bulbs, winter aconite is a real boon in a woodland garden (or would be if it actually grew). They are known as spring ephemerals, because they take advantage of the light that filters through to the forest floor before the foliage appears on the trees, and disappear later in the year. In this, they mimic their close relative, the lesser celandine. Even snow does not deter the winter aconite. For the rest of the year, the plant hides beneath the leaf litter as a bulb, waiting for its moment of glory when everything else is still dormant.

Winter aconite has inspired a number of artists, including Sir Stanley Spencer, more famous for his figurative paintings involving his home village of Cookham. Here is a painting that he made on commission for the wife of the local vicar, the Reverend Canon Westropp. It was sold at Bonhams in 2013 for £51,650, and I suspect that this might have been a bargain. Spencer had always made studies of local flora to include in his landscape paintings, but the floral paintings were small and sold well. Spencer worked on some of these paintings between his more famous works, and seems to have taken a great deal of care over them: he commented that one of his plant pictures, ‘Magnolias’, was ‘as good as anything that I’ve ever done’. There is certainly a lot of love in ‘Winter Aconites’, painted in 1957, towards the end of Spencer’s life (he died in 1959).

Winter Aconite by Stanley Spencer (Photo One – credit below)

And I would like to finish with a poem, because that’s always a good way to finish in my experience. The poet Freda Downie, who died in 1993, was born in Shooter’s Hill, evacuated to Northamptonshire, returned to London in time for the Blitz, left when it finished and with impeccable timing was brought back to London in time for the V1 and V2 rockets. I love her poem Aconites, which feels just right for this time of the year, and even mentions a blackbird.

“Winter holds fast,
But a little warmth escapes like sand
Through the closed fingers.
The error is annual and certain,
Letting the pygmy flowers
Make their prompt appearance
Under creaking trees.
They stand with serious faces, green ruffled,
As prim as Tudor portraits.


In the west
The greys and gleam slide in the wind
And only the descended blackbird
Augments the intrepid yellow.”

Photo Credits

Photo One (Winter Aconites by Stanley Spencer) https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20776/lot/69/

Freda Downie’s poem was published on the Greentapestry website here

All other blog content free to use and share non-commercially, but please attribute and link back to the blog, thank you!

Dear Readers, we went for a quick visit to Golders Green Crematorium at the weekend – we were promised a (brief) spell of warm weather, but instead we got some of the damp stuff. Nonetheless, it was long enough to admire the camellias before the rain (and the snow as of today) ruined their petals. Such ephemeral plants, and so varied these days! As you’ll read in my 2018 post below, I have a white one in a pot that my Dad bought for me, though he was never well enough to come and see it. These plants aren’t great for pollinators (my usual reason for giving anything house (or should that be garden?) room but how could I possibly get rid of this one?

Camellia japonica

I’m noticing a fair few double-flowered camellias now, like this splendid cerise one also from the crematorium.

But in truth I like the single-flowered ones best. They have a kind of hauteur (I’m sure I’m projecting now), a frosty elegance that makes me think that they would look down on the blowsy roses and ostentatious lilies if they were all at a ball together. Clearly there is too much Jane Austen in my backstory.

A friend of mine suggests that although they are supposed to like acid soil, camellias will do very well if planted in the garden, in spite of the clay soil, and there are many plants in local gardens that seem to prove the point. Maybe this year I will liberate my camellia from its confines and allow it to run free! Along with my poor potted mahonia, and a pyracantha that I’ve had in a pot since 1998. I rather suspect that the roots of the pyracantha will contain the bones of my pet hamster – I had no garden at the time of her demise but couldn’t bear to just throw her out in the rubbish. It will be interesting to see how I get on.

And now, let’s journey back to 2018 and my first post about the camellia. Seems like I’ve been obsessed ever since.

Dear Readers, it might seem strange to be in love with a plant, but I am enraptured with the white camellia that lives in a pot right outside my back door. I have tried to create a shade garden in the dreary north-facing side return there, and Dad gifted me with this plant several years ago. I know that it isn’t good for pollinators (my usual reason for planting something).  I know that in a bad year, the blossoms go brown almost before they’ve opened because of cold weather or rain. But still, I find it exquisitely beautiful, with its shiny green leaves and sunburst of yellow stamens in the centre of all that ivory-white.

Every time I see it, it reminds me of Dad. I think of how he taught me to transplant seedlings, picking them up with his big brown hands and handling them with such tender care. It makes me sad to think that, because of the neuropathy in his hands, he can now barely handle a knife and fork, though he would be the last one to dwell on such things. He deals with things by getting on with it does my Dad, and he doesn’t seem to think about what he used to be able to do. Everyone copes with things differently, but this is his way, and it seems to work for him. My parents come from a class and a generation when it wasn’t done to analyse things too much, because what was the point?  No one outside your immediate family and community was going to help.

The camellia is also known as the Rose of Winter, and in the mountainous areas of its native China, South Korea and Japan it blooms between January and March. In my back garden, its buds open from mid March onwards, although the snow that we’ve had this week will be slowing it up a bit.

In Japan, the flower is pollinated by the Japanese white-eye, a small bird.

Japanese white-eyes courting (Zosterops japonicus) (Photo One)

Most camellia species need acidic soil, hence the fact that my plant is growing in a pot – the clay in my garden would certainly not be to the plant’s taste. There are, however, a few Vietnamese camellias that live in the limestone karst area of the country, and which are more amenable to alkaline soils.

Vietnam is also home to the endangered yellow camellia, Camellia chrysantha. Apparently breeders have been trying for years to get a yellow camellia which also flowers abundantly, and even in China and Japan they have largely failed – the yellow species tend to have small, downward-facing flowers, and to be extremely picky about where they grow.

Camellia chrysantha, the yellow camellia (Photo Two)

As you will know, the garden camellia is closely related to Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, and tea can be made with the leaves of Camellia japonica. For the full details of how to do it, have a look at the Taurus Rising blog here. However, as a synopsis, you need to pick the youngest three leaves at the top of a stem, rub the leaves between your hands to crumble them, and then sort out the stems from the leaves. The crumbled leaves are left for a couple of days and are moved around periodically to aerate them before they are dried in a low oven. The conclusion was that the resulting brew was pretty high in caffeine, and ‘delicate’ in flavour – the authors thought that the leaves could have been left for a few more days to mature and deepen the taste.

Personally, I still want my camellia to grow, so will wait a bit longer before I start nipping off the stem tips. Camellias grow fast (up to 30 cm a year) and can live a long time (there are camellias in Portugal that are thought to be 460 years old). In time, they can turn into a magnificent tree – there are a couple in a front garden in Tufnell Park that are absolutely gob-smacking, as tall as the second storey window and covered in red and pink blooms every spring. I don’t have a photo of those trees, but the one below, from Hyde Hall in Essex, gives you an idea.

Camellia tree at RHS Hyde Hall (Photo Three)

Japanese camellia as a bonsai (Photo Four)

In Japan, the Emperor carried a staff made from camellia wood to fend off the evil eye, and flowers are said to represent business success, virtue, happiness, fidelity, luxury, tastefulness, & a life concluding in the ease of retirement. In China, the flower is said to represent the union of male and female, with the petals representing the female principle, and the green calyx representing the male. Typically, when a flower falls the calyx remains on the stem, but in camellias both fall away together. It is said that both male and female attributes are needed for wholeness (as in yin and yang) and I’m not going to argue with that.

The flowers of the camellia have always been seen as expensive, rare, and slightly decadent. Probably the most famous literary representation of the plant is La Dame aux Camelias, by Alexandre Dumas. It tells the story of a young man in love with a courtesan, Marguerite Gautier, who is dying of consumption. In real life, the courtesan was Marie Duplessis, Duma’s lover. In the novel, Marguerite gets her epithet ‘the lady of the camellias’ because she wears a red camellia when she is menstruating (and hence unavailable) and a white one the rest of the time. The book rapidly became a play, and then the opera La Traviata. In the cinema, the role of Marguerite has been played by actresses as varied as Greta Garbo, Theda Bara (the original ‘Vamp’) and Isabelle Adjani.

Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor in the 1936 film ‘Camille’ (Photo Five)

Pheasant and Camellia shrub by Lu Ji (Public Domain)

Finally, for our burst of poetry this week, I’d like to present two poems. The first, by American poet Carol Snow, is short and simple, at least at first glance.

Near a shrine in Japan he'd swept the path
and then placed camellia blossoms there.

Or — we had no way of knowing — he'd swept the path
between fallen camellias.

Dear Readers, on New Year’s Day we decided to enjoy some brief sunshine amidst the downpours and howling gales that had comprised most of the festive season, and to go and look for plants in flower. We went to Cherry Tree Wood, and to some of the surrounding streets in East Finchley, including my beloved unadopted road (always a fine location for ‘weeds’ of all varieties. In all, we found 9 plants in flower.First up, some daisies in the grassy verge around the Monkey Puzzle Nursery. Some of this area has been managed as a tiny wildflower meadow in the past few years, but if you don’t see anything else, you can bet your life that you’ll see a daisy, bless ’em. So far in the Plant Hunt, it’s the plant most often seen (on 1236 different hunts when I last looked)

Daisy (Bellis perennis)

Strangely enough there was nothing obvious in flower in Cherry Tree Wood as we strolled through, but on the unadopted road there were several fine patches of white dead-nettle (Lamium album). I do love a Lamium – there are so many wonderful plants in this genus and they are great for pollinators. Between the woundworts and the dead-nettles and the horehounds there are some great medieval names too. Currently on the BSBI list at number 5.

White Dead-Nettle (Lamium album)

Coming out of the unadopted road and heading along Baronsmere there were a variety of plants in flower growing out of the old walls. This area has always been a great place for weed-hunting, with some of the plants being obviously self-sown from garden plants, and others just liking the habitat. So, in quick succession we had two kinds of bellflower, Trailing (Campanula poscharskyana) and Adria or Dalmatian (Campanula portenschlagiana). Trailing bellflower comes in at number 38, but I can’t see Adria bellflower at the moment. These plants seem pretty local to North London to me, and particularly round where I live – it’s always interesting to see how plants take to some areas more than others.

Dalmatian bellflower

Trailing Bellflower

Someone had a very fine smooth sow-thistle growing in their front garden – the one in the photo is another plant, but you get the general idea. In at number thirteen!

Smooth sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus)

There is almost always some yellow corydalis in flower too, and here it was again, just about to put out some flowers. Such a delicate-looking plant, and if it wasn’t already growing up everywhere no doubt we’d pay for it in the garden centre.

Yellow corydalis (Pseudofumaria lutea)

And there was some ivy-leaved toadflax, one of my favourite urban flowers. You can spot it growing out of almost any wall that isn’t completely marble-smooth, and if you look very closely you’ll see that its flowers are like tiny miniature orchids.

Ivy-leaved toadflax (Cymbalaria muralis)

On the corner of Park Hall Road there’s a raised bed by the side of one of the houses that always has some interesting and unexpected plants. On one occasion I found some lucerne, which was rather puzzling, but this time there was some lady’s bedstraw in flower. Did someone chuck a handful of wildflower seeds here once years ago, and they’ve been sorting themselves out ever since? Very puzzling. The photo below is from Muswell Hill Playing Fields, where there is a similar wild patch, but you get the general idea.

Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum)

And finally there was some shepherd’s purse at the bottom of a wall on Durham Avenue. I’ve grown very fond of this little plant, which seems to be able to put up with the toughest of conditions (this is currently the tenth most-often reported plant)

Shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris)

So we found nine plants in flower in less than 45 minutes during our walk in what is mainly a pretty urban area. Some dedicated souls have managed to find over 100 species, and you can read all about what’s been found so far here. I will report back when the results have been analysed, but in the meantime do let me know if you did the plant hunt here in the UK or Ireland, or if you do something similar where you live.

And now, on to the Great British Birdwatch at the end of the month. How I ever found time to work I have no idea.

Christmas trees waiting for disposal in East Finchley in Jan 2023

Well, Dear Readers, here we are again for another year. The decorations are down (or should be down shortly if we’re adhering to the old superstition that it was unlucky to have them up after Twelfth Night), the tree is (in my case) dismantled and packed back into its box, the Christmas pudding and Christmas cake have been eaten and my trousers seem strangely tighter than they used to (must have shrunk in the wash). Am I the only one who feels a small sense of relief that I’m getting back ‘to normal’? Friends are available for coffee and walks in the woods again, my course is kicking off on Monday (and I’ve managed to get a week or so ahead so I’m feeling very smug) and today there’s even an interlude between Storm Henk and Storm Isha, so there’s an unusual bright  yellow orb in the sky that I’d almost forgotten about.

But here, as my final piece in this series, is an ode to the most typical of UK Christmas trees, the Nordmann Fir, from 2017. See what you think. And yes, Tony’s Continental still sells Christmas trees!

Nordmann Fir (Abies nordmanniana)

Dear Readers, when you see the Christmas trees stacked up outside Tony’s Continental in East Finchley, you know that Christmas is well and truly on its way. Another indication is when you see Michael with an axe in his hand, ready to pare down the trunks and fit them into a Christmas tree holder. One conversation with a customer went like this:

Customer: ‘Careful with that axe, you’ll cut your leg off!’

Michael: ‘I’ve been doing this for forty years and I haven’t cut one off yet! But even if I did, I’ve got another one’.

Here is a photo of Michael at work. To be honest, it’s not his legs I’m worried about.

I am also much impressed by the Christmas tree wrapping contraption that is brought out every festive season. Just pop a tree into the metal tube, push it through and it comes out wrapped in a netting bag. It’s a kind of Christmas tree sausage machine.

60% of the Christmas trees that are sold in the UK are Nordmann firs, and I can see why – the tree has soft, child-friendly needles that don’t drop, and it is a good-value, long-lived tree. What it doesn’t have is any fragrance so you won’t get that delicious piney smell, but as this scent makes some people’s noses twitch, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Nordmann firs come originally from the mountains to the south and east of the Black Sea, and so are native to Turkey, Georgia, the Russian Caucasus and parts of Azerbaijan. They live in mountainous areas from 900-2200 metres and grow to a terrific height  – one tree in the Western Caucasus reserve has been reported to be 279 feet tall, the largest tree in Europe. They also live in regions which have a rainfall of over 1000 mm per year, which is a reminder to keep them well-watered while they’re in the house.

‘Wild’ Nordmann Fir trees in Karachayevo-Cherkesiya, Caucasus (Photo One)

The trees at Tony’s are typically about six to seven feet high, and would be between eight and twelve years of age. The seed is normally taken from older trees, grown on in nurseries and then sold to Christmas tree farms when the saplings are three to four years old. Once harvested, they will have a brief life of a couple of weeks in the house, before being put outside to be recycled by the council. Here in Barnet, the trees are chipped and used as a weed suppressant on municipal beds, or on paths. The chippings can also be heat-treated and then used as a soil conditioner (in their native state, the needles produce a chemical which inhibits the growth of other plants, which is one reason for the almost sterile under canopy of fir plantations).

The debate about whether to have a live tree or a cut one, or an artificial tree, depends, as usual, on a variety of factors. A live tree in a pot, that can be used year after a year, is probably the most environmentally-friendly option, but the trees often don’t survive the sudden change in environment. A cut tree is the next best choice, but only if it’s recycled: if it ends up in landfill, it generates about 16kg carbon due to the methane released as it decomposes. ‘Real’ Christmas trees also provide a habitat for a variety of birds and insects as they grow, including goldcrests, firecrests and crested tits, although the serried ranks of fir trees, row on row, are much less biodiverse than mixed woodland.

A crested tit (Parus cristatus) (Photo Two)

Another way of dealing with your Christmas tree once the festivities are over could be to eat it, but sadly not if you’ve opted for a Nordmann fir. In the article here the authors describe their attempts to turn their tree into a delicious feast.  The authors describe their Nordmann fir mayonnaise as

‘….the worst of all our experiments. It It seriously made us question our abilities and the whole concept!’

The tree was quickly replaced by the more fragrant blue spruce (Picea pungens).

Interestingly, the needles from Christmas trees of all kinds can be used in the manufacture of the anti-viral Tamiflu, which was in the news during recent worries about a bird flu pandemic. In Toronto in 2006, residents donated no less than half a million Christmas trees, and the needles were treated and powdered, ready to create up to a million Tamiflu tablets a day in the event of an outbreak. Let’s just hope that they’re never needed (Hah! Note that this was written three years before the Covid-19 pandemic. Not that Tamiflu would have helped).

The Nordmann fir didn’t always have such a grasp on the UK Christmas tree market. When I was growing up, the favourite was the Norway spruce (Picea abies) which had little sharp pointed needles which seemed to drop off as soon as the tree came through the front door. I remember picking the needles out of the pads of our dog, Spock, who was the most accident-prone hound that I ever met. He once set fire to himself by leaning up against the electric bar heater, and was only rescued when someone caught a whiff of burning fur.

Christmas seems to be the time of the year when, in the UK at least, people yearn to bring plants into the house. For a month or so, our homes are staggering under the weight of poinsettias and amaryllises, Christmas cacti and hyacinth bulbs, holly wreaths and bunches of mistletoe, and that’s even before the tree arrives. Although the origins of the Christmas tree itself are said to be from Germany in the 16th Century, it feels as if something much older is going on, and indeed evergreen branches were brought into the house for centuries before the tree itself made an appearance. It seems to me that something very profound is going on: a need to remind ourselves that the darkness of winter is not forever, and that under the soil, life is still stirring. Plus there is something about a fir tree that reminds us of the resilience needed to survive outside in the harshest of weathers. I am curious about the choice of tree in other countries that celebrate Christmas. What’s the tree of choice in Australia, for example, or in California? Do tell, I am intrigued.

As you know, dear friends, I love to close these pieces with a poem.  I find that I am ambivalent about the folksy poetry of Robert Frost, although I love the one about riding through the woods with ‘promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep’ and I can even tolerate ‘The Road Less Travelled’. And so, here is something thought-provoking from the poet, which speaks of town and country, rich and poor, and the worth that we put on living things.

Christmas Rose on Mum and Dad’s grave in Milborne St Andrew, Dorset

Dear Readers, the Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger) has become very popular as a gift plant in the past few years, and I can see why – it’s delicate, pretty, and in theory at least you can pop it into the garden when it’s done. But for me, a prime reason for growing it is that any queen bees waking up from hibernation during a mild spell will find it very handy for a quick sip of nectar – the photo above was taken during a grave visit in December 2022. I  have never been able to get the plant to be happy in my north-facing garden – maybe the soil is too heavy, or maybe it’s just too dank and dark – but I always admire it.

And look, I found a poem, by no other than Cecil Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis was a staunch Christian, but I’m sure that the lines about ‘the death of innocents, the rule of fear’ will resonate for all of us. Also, for those of us who read a lot of poetry, the rhyme scheme seems particularly interesting. See what you think, and then let’s see what Bug Woman thought about the Christmas Rose back in (gosh) 2018.

THE CHRISTMAS ROSE

What is the flower that blooms each year
In flowerless days,
Making a little blaze
On the bleak earth, giving my heart some cheer?

Harsh the sky and hard the ground
When the Christmas rose is found.
Look! its white star, low on earth,
Rays a vision of rebirth.

Who is the child that’s born each year —
His bedding, straw:
His grace, enough to thaw
My wintering life, and melt a world’s despair?

Harsh the sky and hard the earth
When the Christmas child comes forth.
Look! around a stable throne
Beasts and wise men are at one.

What men are we that, year on year,
We Herod-wise
In our cold wits devise
A death of innocents, a rule of fear?

Hushed your earth, full-starred your sky
For a new nativity:
Be born in us, relieve our plight,
Christmas child, you rose of light!

Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger)

Dear Readers, it might seem a bit early to start talking about all things Christmas-related, but the flowers of the Christmas rose are so striking that I couldn’t resist. Spotted in a window box on the County Roads in East Finchley, they are not roses at all but hellebores, members of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae). That the Latin species name for this plant (niger) means ‘black’ when the flower is pure white is a little confusing, but it probably refers to the roots. The word ‘Helleborus’ comes from the Greek words ellos, meaning ‘fawn’ and bora, meaning ‘food’  – I love the idea of young deer munching upon it, although some commentators remark that it is deer resistant. The grazers would have to be careful though, because, like all hellebores, Christmas rose is poisonous, though probably less so than some other species. Handling the seeds can cause skin irritation as well. It is also toxic to dogs and cats, so be careful if you have pets and want to bring the plant indoors.

In spite of its poisonous nature, Christmas rose has been used medicinally, as a purgative following poisoning, and as a antihelminthic (a new word to me) for parasites in children. Too much hellebore, however, and it’s quite possible to kill the child. It has also been used as a laxative. I would strongly advise leaving it to look pretty in the garden in the dark early months of the year rather than adding it to a sandwich.

In the wild, Christmas rose is an Alpine plant, found in Switzerland, southern Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and northern Italy. I suspect that the flowers will be rather smaller in the wild than in our gardens. This can be a difficult plant to grow, preferring humus-rich soil and dappled shade, and disliking acidity, but when it’s happy, it’s delightful.

Christmas rose in the Austrian Alps (Photo One)

Traditionally, Christmas rose was said to have arisen from the tears of a young girl who had no gift to give to the infant Christ. It often isn’t in flower by Christmas, but may be bursting forth by 6th January, which was Christmas Day under the old Julian calendar. Obviously the ones that I photographed hadn’t got the memo about their flowering date.  It is also believed that standing on powder made from the roots of a Christmas rose will make you invisible, which is a splendid idea, what with Christmas coming and all those crowds to navigate. Should you have the urge to dig a Christmas rose up you should, according to Pliny, make sure that you are not spotted by an eagle, because the bird will swoop down and cause your death (an unlikely event in East Finchley but then I’m extremely risk averse). Pliny also suggests that, having scanned the sky for any birds of prey, you should draw a circle around the plant, face east and offer up a prayer before picking up your spade.

No other luminary than Charles Darwin, with his usual close attention, noticed something unusual about the change in the Christmas rose once it’s pollinated. The pure white flower goes green, and its shape changes, as can clearly be seen in the photo below, where the blooms show the various stages of the change, from top to bottom. I’m not sure whether this a plant strategy to deter insects from trying to pollinate a flower that is already impregnated, or just a sign, as Darwin thought, that the plant colour is related to the production of nectar which is not required once the bloom has fulfilled its purpose. Of course, it could also be both. Nature is nothing if not complex and interconnected.

The fruit of the Christmas rose (Photo Two)

Christmas rose toiletries from Erbaflor (Photo Three)

And here is a rather lovely poem by Michael Newman, published online by Acumen magazine.It seems to me to sum up the unexpected quality of plants that bloom in the midwinter. They always feel so precious, for being so rare.

Winter Colour

Blush-shy,
The flower rises
From the soil,
Then opens into white apparition,
Helleborus niger,
The Christmas Rose.

On such a grey and rain-rotten day,
I welcome this affirmation

Of unbridled joy:

Photo Credits

Photo One by By Robert Hundsdorfer – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19318105

Photo Two by No machine-readable author provided. Migas assumed (based on copyright claims). [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Three from https://www.erbaflor.com/en/shop/the-scents-of-nature/the-christmas-rose-en/christmas-rose-perfume-1-detail

Dear Readers, having discussed holly as the First Plant of Christmas, it feels past time to have a chat about ivy. I first wrote about this plant back in 2014, and that post is reproduced below, but since the advent of ivy bees in the UK I have even more respect for this plant. It provides late-season nectar when everything else has gone, and birds love the berries – in our local cemetery I often hear woodpigeons clattering about in the ivy-covered trees as they gorge themselves.

Ivy bee on ivy flowers earlier this year

I have found a couple of poems about ivy, and both of them seem to concentrate on its sinuous, creeping nature – rarely has a plant been symbolic of so many different things simultaneously (see my 2014 interpretation below). First up is a poem by none other than Charles Dickens, which appeared in his first novel ‘The Pickwick Papers’. Here, it all seems to be about the plant’s persistence and longevity.

The Ivy Green
BY CHARLES DICKENS

Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o’er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim:
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a staunch old heart has he.
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings,
To his friend the huge Oak Tree!
And slily he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,
As he joyously hugs and crawleth round
The rich mould of dead men’s graves.
Creeping where grim death has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old Ivy shall never fade,
From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant, in its lonely days,
Shall fatten upon the past:
For the stateliest building man can raise,
Is the Ivy’s food at last.
Creeping on, where time has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

And then there’s this one by Thomas Hardy, which sees ivy as a Femme Fatale, clinging and creeping and ultimately killing the thing that she loves. Ha! Poor old ivy. See what you think. I am intrigued by the ‘drip’ from the beech – I’ve had a quick look and can see nothing to suggest that beech can deter ivy by any kind of chemical defence, so maybe this is a folkloric reference. Does anybody know?

THE IVY-WIFE

by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

I longed to love a full-boughed beech
And be as high as he:
I stretched an arm within his reach,
And signalled unity.
But with his drip he forced a breach,
And tried to poison me.

I gave the grasp of partnership
To one of other race–
A plane: he barked him strip by strip
From upper bough to base;
And me therewith; for gone my grip,
My arms could not enlace.

In new affection next I strove
To coll an ash I saw,
And he in trust received my love;
Till with my soft green claw
I cramped and bound him as I wove…
Such was my love: ha-ha!

By this I gained his strength and height
Without his rivalry.
But in my triumph I lost sight
Of afterhaps. Soon he,
Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright,
And in his fall felled me!

And now let’s fly back to 2014 and see what I had to say about ivy then.

Ivy (Hedera helix)

Ivy is perhaps the most divisive wild plant in the UK. For some, it is a clambering, entwining seducer, a plant of overweening ambition, capable of pulling the mortar out of brickwork and dragginbg the mightiest Oak to the ground.   For others it’s the most valuable wildlife plant that you can grow, providing nectar and pollen for bees and butterflies and shiny black berries for the birds.

Firstly, Ivy as strangler.

Ivy clambering upwards….

In the photo above, we can see the ambitious roots grappling with the bark of a Hornbeam as the plant reaches for the sky. Whilst Ivy can exist perfectly happily in a sprawl in dense woodland (and it is one of the few plants that will survive where there is very heavy leaf cover), it is also not averse to clambering upwards when it comes into contact with a suitable support. But unless it finds soil or a deep crevice, Ivy will use the object solely as a climbing frame, and is not a parasite.

The problem comes when the ivy reaches the top of the tree. Here, it will flourish, and, in a windy spot, the sheer weight of growth can be enough to pull the tree over. In Plants Britannica, Richard Mabey quotes a Dorset man who states that, when clearing ivy from a fallen tree, ‘the weight of the ivy often exceeds the weight of its host’.

Ivy proliferating on a tree – photo by Benjamin Zwittnig under Slovenia Creative Commons licence 2.5

And yet, I have a sense that something else is going on here. In much plantlore, the bold, straightforward Holly is seen as expressing the male principle, the sinuous, all-encompassing ivy as embodying the female principle . Could some of the hatred of Ivy, of its clinging,nature, be a kind of sublimated misogyny, a fear of fecundity? We are complicated creatures, and our motives are often hidden, even from ourselves.

Ivy has a long connection with alcohol. Because ivy can smother grapevines, it was sometimes seen as being able to cure a hangover through sympathetic magic. Ivy used to be grown over poles as an advertisement for the quality of the wine on sale at a public house – these poles were known as ‘bushes’, hence the phrase ‘good wine needs no bush’. Many pubs, such as the one below, maintain the link with Ivy:

The Ivy Inn, North Littleton © Copyright Philip Halling and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Furthermore, a bowl made of Ivy wood was said to neutralise the effects of drinking bad wine.

Ivy has a long history, also, as a magical plant, particularly with regard to the protection of domestic animals. In Plants Britannica, Richard Mabey tells how, in the Highlands and Islands, it was plaited into a wreath with Rowan and Honeysuckle to protect the cattle. Animals that have been poisoned by eating Yew or Ragwort are said to eat Ivy when they won’t eat anything else. It is said to tempt a sick ewe to eat after a difficult birth, and to cure eye disease in cattle.

One factor in Ivy’s success is its adaptability. It can form a modest sprawl, it can completely cover a building, or it can change its nature completely and become a shrub. Once Ivy flowers, it becomes a blessing for all kinds of insects when other sources of food are long dead.

Red Admiral

A different Red Admiral

Honey Bee

Hoverfly

All these creatures were photographed on one sunny afternoon last week, clustering around the Ivy flowers and filling the air with their buzzing. For the Red Admirals, who hibernate, this last food might make the difference between surviving the winter, and dying.

Ivy is also the larval foodplant of the Holly Blue butterfly, another reason for having some in the garden.

By Charlesjsharp (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

And in one  way, I have a link with this plant. Ivy is my middle name, and was given to me to honour my paternal grandmother. She was a tough, tenacious individual, bringing up three children single-handedly after her husband was killed during the Second World War. Like her namesake, she clung on in desperate times, and I hope that, if put to the test, I could summon up the indomitable spirit of my grandmother, and of the plant that we are both named after.

Dear Readers, you might remember that I have been puzzled about the plant in the photo above for some time. It was planted in the woodland graveyard in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery, and it seemed rather out of place. However, earlier this week we went for a walk, and all has been revealed….

It’s only a bloomin’ Mahonia! (literally)

There are seventy species of Mahonia, but I am most familiar with the spikey little number that I have in the garden (which I think is Berberis aquifolium, originally called Mahonia aquifolium but there is some debate amongst botanists as to whether the Mahonias should have their own genus or be lumped in with the rest of the Berberis). Aquifolium means ‘spikey-leaved’ – holly is known as Ilex aquifolium for the same reason). However, the ones in the cemetery are much more delicate and user-friendly, though if you look closely at the photo above you can see that some of the leaves are desperately trying to be at least a little bit dangerous.

I think this could possibly be Mahonia/Berberis Eurybracteata ‘Soft Caress’ – if anyone has one, let me know what you think! This species originally came from China, and was first described in 1900, when it was known as Mahonia confusa. Well, it certainly confused me. If you have a look at the herbarium specimen in the Kew Gardens collection, you’ll see that the plant’s leaves are still fairly spikey, so the plant breeders have worked hard to make it so inoffensive.

Mahonia confusa in the Kew Gardens herbarium (https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:1000096-1/images)

Anyhow, I had lots to say about Mahonia back in 2016, but I didn’t have a poem. However, I found this one on the website of Fairacre Press, and I think it probably sums up what a walk through the woods with me can sometimes be like, though (hopefully) without the withering stare. The poem is by Nadia Kingsley, and the pamphlet that it comes from (‘A Year in Herbs’) sounds rather lovely, with a poem a month for a plant that’s important in herbal medicine. I think I might indulge. Mahonia is January’s poem.

On a wintry woodland walk

“That’s not a holly bush” she informs
“Look there – at its spears of yellow flowers.
And if you come back in a month or more – you’ll see
that its berries are blue, not red. “Did you know,” she adds,
“that the berries are actually edible? You can make wine, or brandy”.
“Is that why it’s called the Oregon Grape?” I ask. She’s impressed.
I’ve been googling the plant, behind her back,
as we walk one-by-one down the narrow wooded path,
and I now read out: “It’s part of the Barberry family.
Did you know”, I add, “that the leaves’ undersides are tartan?”
“That’s Burberry” she says, as she gives me such an icy look
it’d wither even the Mahonia aquifolium – which is, by the way, evergreen.

And now, let’s journey back to 2016.

Mahonia aquifolium

Dear Readers, there is no doubt at all that Mahonia (or Oregon Grape as it is often known) is largely a plant of parks and gardens, but I found this individual right on the edge of Alexandra Park and the north London Parkland Walk, where it appeared to be making a break for freedom. It is originally a plant of North America, and is named after ‘the first nurseryman in America’, Bernard McMahon (1775-1816) who curated the plant collection of explorers Lewis and Clark. The plant arrived in the UK in 1823. By 1874 it could be found in the wild, and it is sometimes deliberately planted as cover for game birds (much as snowberry was). With its spiny evergreen leaves, yellow flowers and, later, its bloom-covered blue berries, it is one of those plants that has some interest in every season. It also seems to tolerate clay soil, and so there are some very fine examples of the plant in East Finchley.

The plant has a lot going for it as food for animals. It is recommended by many organisations as a food-source for early emerging bumblebee queens and solitary bees. The flowers have a rather pleasant smell too. The berries are liked by blackbirds and mistle thrushes. The leathery leaves are also, surprisingly, a food plant for moths such as the Bright Line Brown Eye (once again, I am in love with the names of moths) and the Peppered moth.

A Bright Line Brown Eye moth caterpillar….(Lacanobia oleracea) (Photo One – credit below)

…and when it’s all grown up (Photo Two – credit below)

Peppered Moth (Biston betularia – white form) (Photo Three – credit below)

Peppered moth (Biston betularia – black form) Photo Four (credit below)

However, mahonia is not only food for visitors to the garden – the ‘grapes’ have been used as human food. In North America, many native tribes ate the berries raw, whilst some turned them into jams and jellies, and others dried them. Should you have a superabundance of mahonia in your garden and an urge to knock up some preserves, you can find all the details you need at the Backwoods Home website. However, as many tribes people only ate the berries as a last resort, we can maybe assume that, whilst a useful source of vitamins, they are not as palatable as you might hope.

Mahonia berries (Photo Five)

The wood of mahonia is bright yellow, and produces a dye of the same colour, while the berries produce a purple one. Richard Mabey notes in Flora Britannica that one young boy used the juice from the ‘grapes’ as very convincing fake blood. One can only imagine how much the child’s mother appreciated his inventiveness.

Mahonia has also long been used for everything from gastritis to syphilis by the native peoples of North America, and  there have also been some promising recent studies into its use in the treatment of psoriasis. Indeed, much as I hate to publicise it,  mahonia medicine has even made the hallowed pages of the Femail section of the Daily Mail. Why it’s in the ‘Femail’ section goodness only knows. As far as I know, men get psoriasis too. But it’s probably just as well not to get me started on gender differentiation in the media. We could be here all day.

And there is one more thing to mention about mahonia. Some plants react when touched – the ‘Sensitive plant’ or mimosa is one example. We had one in a pot when we were children, and I remember how the poor plant would behave when we touched it, the individual leaves creeping together as if terrified and then the whole ‘branch’ collapsing . How we laughed, spawn of Satan that we were. Well, New Scientist reports that more than 100 species of plants have touch-sensitive stamen, and that mahonia is one of them. On the Digital Botanic Garden website, there are photos of the stamen contracting after being touched – the theory is that this helps to force pollen onto the legs of any visiting insects. This is a remarkably quick reaction, taking less than a second in warm weather. We often think of plants as being slow-moving organisms, but the more I learn about them, the more I realise that they are intensely reactive beings, responding to their environment with great rapidity when necessary. Let’s never underestimate our flora. They’re a lot more dynamic than we give them credit for.

Credits

As usual, I’d like to credit Richard Mabey’s ‘Flora Britannica’ and Sue Eland’s ‘Plant Lives‘ website for providing invaluable information.

Photo Credits

Photo One – By Rasbak – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1087083

Photo Two – By ©entomart, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=313383

Photo Three – CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.

Photo Four – CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=880130

Photo Five – By The original uploader was Meggar at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1375500

All other photographs copyright Vivienne Palmer