LAST year’s heatwave and drought reduced parched lawns to a uniform brown, but one species of spindly weed continued to rise here and there above the desolation, its dark-green feathery leaves and bunches of tiny white or pinkish flowers defying the arid conditions. Native across Scandinavia, Europe and Asia and now found around the globe, common yarrow is as tough as it is prolific. If it is mown, its base leaves lie flat and its stem regrows. Left to reach its natural height at the wayside and field edges, it may attain a good 2ft. In times past, this persistence was gratefully acknowledged, for common yarrow was a plant of considerable worth and figured prominently as a herbal remedy throughout recorded history and probably far earlier. Soil analysis at a Neanderthal burial site in a remote cave in the Baradost mountains of Iraq contained yarrow pollen, suggesting a significance to humanity as early as 70,000 years ago—or more.
The plant’s popular name derives (awkwardly) from the Old English geanwe, with closely related versions in Dutch and Old High German, but, botanically, it was inevitably enmeshed in the classical world. Homer wrote that the mythological Greek hero Achilles was instructed by Chiron the centaur in the use of yarrow to treat his warriors’ wounds in the Trojan War. The legend provided Carl Linnaeus, that indefatigable distributor of Greco-Roman labels, with a 1753 genus classification that combined ancient narrative with the reality of its multifilament leaves—Achillea millefolium. Early Christians believed it was the first herb the infant Jesus held in his hand and that he used it to heal his earthly father Joseph. The French called yarrow ‘herbe de St Joseph’ (today, it is achillée) and, in this country, its many folk names included carpenter’s weed.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin May 29, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin May 29, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.