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…..

For me, the sight of the first snowdrops of spring is like a long drink of cold water after a hot, dusty walk. The dazzling white flowers and the fresh green-grey foliage seem fresh and toothsome, as delicious as the first asparagus.

This is especially true in a woodland setting, and in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery there are a number of unkempt, wild areas, where the graves have become overgrown with moss and lichen. Here, the Snowdrops have naturalised, creating a wash of white that glows in the dim spaces.

Some vernacular names for the Snowdrop include February Fairmaids, Candlemas Bells and, my own particular favourite, Snow Piercer. This last has a fine Saxon edge to it, as if the plant were a well-loved sword. And yet, there is much debate over whether it is a native plant or naturalised. The answer is probably that it is both. As Richard Mabey points out in Flora Britannica, it is native to Continental Europe, and grows wild in northern Brittany, so it may be that the colonies in the south-west of England are native, arriving while the UK was still part of the European mainland, while those elsewhere are the result of garden escapes, albeit from hundreds of years ago. The Snowdrop has long been associated with purity, and may have been deliberately planted in monastery gardens and churchyards.

I have found Snowdrops extremely difficult to grow in my garden, and I have the feeling that they are not a hundred percent at home in our climate. They emerge too early for most pollinating insects, which makes sense if you consider that they probably come from an area with warmer winters and earlier springs. Because of this, they spread by division of the bulbs, rather than by seed. Many cultivated varieties are also sterile. Chelsea Physic Garden runs Snowdrop Days during February, to show off the sheer variety of cultivars: to read the Gentle Author’s account of a visit, and to see photos of some of them, have a look here.

The Latin name for the Snowdrop genus, Galanthus, means ‘milk-flower’, and the nivalis species name means ‘of the snow’. So, even if you had never seen a snowdrop you would have the definite impression that it was white. And such a white! But each flower also has exquisite green markings on the petals, and also inside the flower itself.

In Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’, a priestess, Circe, turns Odysseus’s crew into pigs. To protect against her enchantments, Odysseus is given the plant Moly by Hermes, and there is some agreement that Moly was, in fact, the Snowdrop. One theory is that the transformation of the crew was a metaphor for the euphoria and hallucinations induced by plants such as Deadly Nightshade and Datura. It just so happens that the Snowdrop contains a chemical called Galantamine, which can counteract the effects of these plants. I love the way that story and science mix here, as they so often do. In the painting below, Circe is offering Odysseus a nice refreshing drink, though the pig on her left-hand side is something of a warning. Just as well Odysseus has his Snowdrop to protect him.

Because of their association with purity, the flowers were sometimes used in Victorian times to warn off over-passionate lovers – a few Snowdrops in an envelope might be enough to dampen a young man’s ardour. But Snowdrops have also been considered unlucky, and in some parts of the UK a single flower is still seen as a death-token, perhaps because, as Mabey explains, Victorians felt that the flower looks ‘for all the world like a corpse in its shroud’. But to me, the bloom looks more like a beautiful white and green moth, and, coming from Bugwoman, there is no higher praise.

 

 

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 week we have something of a mystery on our hands. Growing at the edge of Coldfall Wood is what appears to be a Firethorn (Pyracantha) bush. This native plant of southern Europe through to south-east Asia is a common garden plant, but the clue to its normal form is in the name. Firethorn normally has the most impressive array of thorns of any common shrub, but this  individual appears to be thornless. What is going on?

I used to live in Chadwell Heath, which is in the hinterland between Essex and Greater London. I had two Pyracantha bushes, one with yellow berries, and one with orange ones, much like the one in the picture below.

As you might expect, my garden was wild and overgrown by suburban standards, but it was a home to sparrows and bumblebees, toads and foxes. The sparrows in particular would chirp from the depths of the Firethorn, safe from predators, for none would dare the Firethorn’s spiky tracery. When I sold the house, there was a mix up with the moving vans, and we were marooned after the transaction was completed. The new owners took possession, but we had nowhere to go while we waited for transport to move all our stuff. We had to watch as the new owners of the house started to hack the garden about. For reasons which puzzle me even now, the new man of the house took his shirt off before he started in on my beloved Firethorn. As anyone who has ever encountered one knows, pyracantha fights back with a vengeance. Within half an hour, the plant was half its previous size, but its attacker had so many cuts on his torso that he looked as if he’d been whipped. The Firethorn might have been going down, but it left its opponent bloodied and resentful.

Pyracantha has many advantages as a wildlife garden plant, and has been cultivated in the UK since the Fifteenth century. We have already mentioned its thorns, so useful as a deterrent to would-be burglars. Its flowers attract bees, and its berries attract birds. In fact, the fruits can be such a draw that the municipal planting of Pyracantha and its close relative, Cotoneaster in supermarket car parks sometimes summons that most colourful and iconic of winter birds, the Waxwing.

Of course, none of this explains exactly why this thornless, berryless, flowerless specimen has popped up in the wood.

We have seen numerous examples of plants who have escaped from gardens and established themselves (no doubt with great glee) in the ‘wild’. And as Coldfall Wood backs onto many gardens, it would be a simple thing for a passing blackbird to gobble down a berry, perch in a hornbeam tree and deposit the seed amongst the fallen leaves. But living in the deep shade of the uncoppiced part of the wood is not ideal for a plant that needs at least some direct sunlight. I have a hypothesis that, because thorns are expensive for a plant to produce, maybe this individual is putting all its energy into producing leaves at the moment. Maybe it is too young and innocent to have thorns. Or maybe, in my infinite wisdom, I have misidentified it and it is, in fact, some errant Cotoneaster (though my botanist friends agree that it is a Pyracantha).

Not everybody is fond of Pyracantha.  Like Hawthorn, its flowers are said to smell a little like sex, and so it has come to have something of a wicked reputation. Indeed, it is said that some churches will not have Firethorn berries included as part of the Harvest Festival flower arrangements because it is associated with the Devil. Terrible woman that I am, this makes me admire it even more. Who could not love this fierce, beautiful, generous plant? It is as much a force of nature as a tiger or a kestrel. And in the uncertain, tumultuous days ahead, maybe this is exactly what our struggling pollinators and birds will need.

Sources this week include the Plantlore website, the Plant Lives website and Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica.

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…..

What a diffident plant Annual Mercury is, growing away on disturbed land without any flamboyant flowers or bright foliage to catch the eye. And yet, in the south of England at least, it pops up everywhere. It is a member of the spurge family  (and so related to Sun Spurge), and has a similar milky-white sap if the stems are broken. I found this patch growing just opposite the tube station, and it seems to be doing very well. The plant is dioecious, which means that it has male and female flowers on different plants. Most of the ones on my patch were male, with the flowers held within tall spikes.

And here are the female flowers, along with the burr-like fruits.

I remember first meeting this plant when I was about nine years old. We had recently acquired an allotment in Manor Park, East London, with a great view of the Victorian gas holders at the nearby gas works. When we first got our plot, it was waist-deep in brambles and stinging nettles, and it was a good while before it was cleared and we could get down to planting. Annual Mercury was such a doddle to keep under control compared with some of the other weeds – it pulled up easily, and didn’t draw blood, or raise blisters. But it was a stealthy little devil, popping up as soon as we turned our backs. What I didn’t realise is that the seeds are often carried away by ants as a food store for when times get hard. Some of the seeds will then germinate in the ants’ nest, in perfect conditions. No wonder it can become so prolific.

Annual Mercury has been used as an emollient ointment, and historically has been used as a purgative, diuretic and anti-syphilitic. There is some debate about how it got its name – for Pliny, it was because the plant was discovered by Mercury, the messenger of the gods. On the Poison Garden website, the author suggests that

“Perhaps, as an attractive, athletic man travelling widely to deliver the gods’ messages, Mercury had need of its properties.”

The plant is also eaten, boiled, in Germany – it is said to taste a little like spinach, but as it is poisonous (though not as poisonous as its lookalike, Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis)), I would be inclined to give it a miss. I would hate to think of my readers dropping like flies. Also, in France the plant is known as Mercuriale ou la Foirolle, with la Foire meaning diarrhoea. You have been warned.

In spite of its toxicity, the plant has been fed to pigs in France (though maybe it’s cooked first), and the seeds are eaten by Bullfinches. I would be very happy to have a garden full of Annual Mercury if I was visited by Bullfinches.

Annual Mercury is also known as ‘Girl’s Mercury’ and ‘Boy’s Mercury’, which intrigues me. According to Pliny, the plant could be used by a pregnant mother to select the sex of her child. The author of the Poison Garden website wonders if Pliny is referring to the two different species of Mercury (Annual and Dog’s), and I wonder if there was an understanding that Annual Mercury could be either male or female, and if the mother-to-be would choose her ‘poison’ accordingly. At any rate, this undemonstrative ‘weed’ has a long history of interactions with us, and with the animals in its habitat. I will never look at it in the same way again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 challenge of identifying plants which are not in flower continues this week with this wonderful plant. I found it growing on a long-neglected grave in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery, and with the help of the good people at the British Wildflowers Facebook group, I discovered that it is Germander Speedwell, not Ground Ivy or any of a number of other possibilities. How do I know? Well, the stems of plants in the Speedwell family are round, unlike the square stems of the Deadnettle family, and also, a close look at the stem of the plant shows that there are two rows of long white hairs on either side of the stem. Of course, if it had been in flower there would have been no problem.

There is so much to love about this little plant. I love the deeply-veined, softly-triangular leaves. I love the intense blue of the flowers, with their two stamen that look for all the world like the antennae of bees ( all speedwells have only two stamen). Perhaps most of all, I love that because the flowers wilt very quickly after picking, it is named ‘Men’s Faithfulness’ in German. The flowers also drop from the stems very easy, giving the plant the alternative names of ‘Farewell’ and ‘Goodbye’.  I imagine the robust heroines of Wagnerian opera looking at a drooping, flowerless posy of speedwell in much the same way as I do when presented with a bunch of yellowing chrysanthemums from the garage on Valentine’s Day. This is one plant that is definitely best appreciated where it is found.

Normally, the Germander Speedwell is fertilized by flies, but the flowers will close during the rain, which means that the pollinators can’t get in. If the downpour lasts for long enough, the plant will self-pollinate, which is a handy tactic when times are hard, though not good for the species long-term. Still, the weather in every summer is something of a lottery, and it’s always good to have something to fall back on when times are hard.

Germander Speedwell is also known as Cats-eye, or Birds-eye, probably as a result of its white centre spot. But the name Speedwell relates to the belief that it was a blessing for those about to go on a journey, and in Ireland they were sometimes sewn onto the jackets of travellers for good luck. They also have a reputation as a gout cure, and as a vulnerary ( a healer of wounds). There is certainly something very uplifting about those pure blue flowers, but even without them I found it a most endearing plant. Although the person whose grave it covers has long since been forgotten, it felt as if the Speedwell was wishing them good luck on their journey, wherever the destination might be.