Hawthorn (Crataegus oxyacantha)

An English tradition exists whereby it is understood the calendrical celebration of Mayday is not as permitted until the appearance of Hawthorn flowers, such is the magical  importance of this small wizened tree. The flowers have an almost quixotic fragrance which serves as an aphrodisiacal medicine in itself, when the meadows and hillsides come alive in spring. (As an aside, I have been observing the coincidence of Hawthorn blossom with calendrical Mayday for over 20 years, and have noticed an uncanny punctuality to this blossoming nearly every year, notwithstanding the weather). In English folk custom, the Mayqueen maiden of the village wears Hawthorn blossom in her hair.

 

The diversity of growth form has been utilised by humans for centuries: constant pruning and clipping produces dwarf forms which are turned into hedges to contain livestock. Out on the hillsides, single trees stand bent and gnarled, known as “flag trees” and used istorically as way markers. Hedges are maintained by hedgelaying, a purposeful cutting of the trunks which leaves a strip of bark & cambium in tact, and bending over of the tree which encourages vertical shoots to form and makes it stock- proof. In this way, a hawthorn hedge could be kept alive indefinitely, and certainly there are many examples of hedges many hundreds of years old, which only stand a few feet high. As its name implies, Hawthorn carries thorns which “seal the deal” as an aid to enclosure. Getting stabbed by the thorns is a more forgiving experience than its sister tree, Blackthorn (which has an unpleasant toxic effect). .

Hawthorn is therefore a significant tree of the woodland edge, and provides microhabitats and “wildlife corridor” for an unlimited array of wildlife. The destruction of Hawthorn hedges is a matter of grave conservation concern. Apart from the habitat destruction, the functional importance of wildlife corridors results in limited adaptive response of the landscape to change, reducing genetic diversity in isolated populations of plants, fungi, mammals, and insects. 

Finally, the berries of hawthorn, which are a vivid red colour and quite beautiful in autumn, attract overwintering birds to the garden. The berries can also be used as a gentle, safe cardiovascular tonic in herbal medicine. They increase the strength and volume of the heart beat, and do not interfere with any known pharmacological heart medicines. This is much safer than using the alkaloids of foxglove, which have an effective dose which is unnervingly close to the fatal dose. 

Hazel (Corylus avellana)

Hazel makes excellent dense cover for birds, and is often used as an understory in conservation woodlands for that purpose. It has been used since prehistory as a coppicing tree, and provides roundwood poles which can be used for wattle fencing, shelters houses, and gates. Coppice poles are suitable for use from age 3- 4 years, but anything up to 7 years can still be useful. Coppice woodlands using hazel for roundwood are often split into zones, and a rotation is employed to provide a continual harvest of poles (for 7 year poles, seven stands of hazel are necessary). Thus coppice woodlands represent a kind of age diverse succession which permits a variety of light, vegetation, cover and water scenarios. They are excellent for wildlife.

Hazel nuts are easy to harvest, and may be eaten as roasted nuts, but are otherwise difficult to utilise, on account of their toughness and tannin content. They may be successfully used as flour after cooking and pulverising. From the point of view of “obtaining a yield” making flour is quite labour intensive. Kentish cobnuts seem to be the easiest and most tasty variety of hazel nuts for roasting. 

Elder (Sambucus nigra)

The flowers are fragrant and provide an uplifting splash of colour from mid spring through the summer. Elder is known as ‘the medicine tree’ and all parts of the plant can be used as medicine: root, bark, leaves, flowers, and berries. Whilst the different parts have different medicinal effects, the properties of Elder range from a mild diuretic, to a strong purge to the bowels, which was used frequently in the ‘heroic age’ of herbal medicine. The flowers are an excellent diaphoretic (sweating agent) which can be employed, along with yarrow and mint, during fever. The berries make a delightful ‘rob’, which is a type of runny jam. It can of course be thickened by the addition of pectin, and contains large amounts of Vitamin C.

Elder produces large white umbels which attract a host of insects and pollinators, and thus birds, into the garden. The bark is rough and provides micro- niches for fauna. Often Elder is seed dispersed through bird droppings, so it is not unusual to find a tree by a fence. It propagates vegetatively quite easily. The wood is pulpy and not very good for burning. 

In folklore, the Medicine Crone, or Elder Mother (Hilder- Moer) inhabits the tree. This quote is from Glennie Kindred (who in turn probably discovered this information from Mrs. Grieves: A Modern Herbal):

There are very strong superstitions about not cutting down the elder. Maybe a fear of releasing that malevolent spirit or maybe a deep respect for this tree, which gives so much by way of medicines, food and drink. Early European folk tales tell of a dryad, Hylde-moer, The Elder Tree Mother, who lives in the elder tree and watches over it. Should the tree be chopped down and furniture made of the wood, Hylde-moer would follow her property and haunt the owners. Similar tales tell that if a child's cradle were to be made of elder, Hylde-moer would pinch the child black and blue and give it no peace or rest. Thus it is considered unlucky to make a cradle out of elder wood - birch being the property wood for a cradle, signifying a new start or inception. 

The association of the tree with death is palpable. I accidentally chain- sawed an Elder tree down when I was felling in the woods, and the stench of (presumably), valerianic acid was quite enough to send a shiver down the spine. This, coupled with the formidable 'heroic' herbal medicine applications (encouraging emesis, purgation) during the pyretic phase of fever, and its connection with Halloween and the dark side of the year, are more than enough to instill a supernatural respect.

Red Clover (Trifolium pretense)

Red clover is an excellent permaculture plant, because it has several beneficial uses which occur simultaneously. Red clover can be used as a 'green manure' or cover crop which enriches soil in the cooler months. They can also be grown around and in between vegetable without negative effects. Clover flowers are edible, and the herb is a valuable medicine in its own right.

Clover adds organic matter. A primary reason to grow a cover crop is to increase the amount of organic matter in the soil. Adding organic matter improves the soil's structure, increases its water retention and drainage, and improves aeration. It also provides necessary food for earthworms and microorganisms that increase biological activity in the soil. Increased biological activity in turn helps keep the soil healthy by enhancing decomposition; well-nourished beneficial microorganisms also compete better against disease-causing organisms.

Clover controls erosion. Traditionally, cover crops were used to "cover" the soil during the winter. This prevents erosion and topsoil loss, especially in areas with high winds and inconsistent snow cover.

Cover crops loosen compacted soil generally, and can over time increase aeration, and improve drainage, especially on clay soils such as those encountered in the study area.
 
Clover balances nutrients. Legume cover crops, such as red clover, form a symbiotic relationship with the rhizobia bacteria on their roots, convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form plants can use to grow. When the cover crop is tilled under, the nitrogen is released for the next crop.

They help control weeds. Some cover crops are good weed blockers.Clover is particularly good at this owing to its growth habit, close to the floor, and its somewhat smaller stature compared to other cover plants.

They attract beneficial insects. When native cover crops, such as red clover are allowed to flower, they attract bees and beneficial insects that help with pollination and insect control in the garden.

Red clover as medicine. The blossoms may be dried and used in a pleasant tasting tea. It is often used in combination with other herbs to nourish pregnant and breast feeding women, as well as to treat skin conditions, coughs and blood infections. Red Clover gently purifies the blood, helping to eliminate heavy metals and other environmental contaminants, while nourishing the body with its abundance of trace minerals. It is also mildly antispasmodic, which means it can ease nervous excitability, twitching and spasm. It is gentle enough to give to children who have recurring respiratory problems, such as colds, hay fever, asthma, ear infections or congestion.Traditional Chinese medicine believed that it was a good tonic for colds, to purify the blood, and at one time they burned it as incense. Native Americans used it as a salve for burns, as well as for bronchial problems. Many cultures have traditionally used red clover to treat whooping cough, respiratory problems, psoriasis, eczema and even cancer. Red clover is one of the herbs in Essiac, and grows in many areas around the world.

Edible parts: Although leaves can be tossed into a salad or used in a tea, the preferable part of this wild edible is the flower. Red clovers are the tastiest of all clovers although it is recommended not to eat too many of these as some people experience bloating.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)

Chickweed is exceptionally abundant in towns and country during the spring, autumn, and winter. It will occasionally be found in shadier spots during the summer, but it doesn’t enjoy hot sunshine.This preference, coupled with shallow roots, makes it an ideal understory plant for a vegetable garden. The cover provided by chickweed will competitively exclude other 'weeds' and provide a delicious crop of salad vegetables.

This plant was one of the Victorian’s favourites. The earthy succulence, and soft yet crisp textures, go really well in any salad. When we talk of foraging for alternatives to expensive, nitrate-soaked, plastic-packed salads - then this plant, which grows freely for us, screams out to be used rather than treated as a pernicious weed.

Chickweed also has a long history of traditional uses as an emollient for the skin, helping cases of eczema, psoriasis, ulcers, boils, and abscesses. It can be administered through poultices, compresses, baths and through its consumption in tinctures, fluid extracts in capsules, and as tea. Internally chickweed can be used for rheumatic and respiratory conditions, especially where excessive mucous is present. The17th century herbalist John Gerard recommended it as a remedy for mange. I also make a chickweed ointment in addition to comfrey which is excellent for skin.

S. media contains saponins, which can be toxic when consumed in large quantities. Chickweed has been known to cause saponin poisoning in cattle. However, as the animal must consume several kilos of chickweed in order to reach a toxic level, such deaths are rare. Many such potentially toxic compounds are mitigated against by other factors and phytonutrients in most plants (for example tannins prevent stomach bleeds using White Willow Bark, a main source of salicylic acid (Aspirin)).

The acclaimed Juliette de Bairacli Levy, observed that this plant was employed around the world. She also saw a resemblence between its uses and that of slippery elm: a prized, and also mucilage-rich, digestive and emollient plant. As such, Bairacli Levy rated chickweed as one of the most valuable weeds in the garden. Slippery elm does not grow wild in Britain and is an endangered plant due to the ravages of Dutch elm disease, so we may come to use and cherish chickweed more and more in a post-peak-oil society.

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is a wonder plant. It is a dynamic accumulator, drawing minerals out of the soil and into the roots and leaves, a compost accelerator, a fine ingredient in liquid manure (comfrey tea, similar to nettle tea below), beneficial insect attractor, mulch, weed suppressant (it can be used as a border around vegetable plots to stop the paths getting overrun with weeds, biomass accumulator, livestock forage, edible, a wound healer and it was traditionally called 'knit bone' by herbalists as it helps heals fractures and soft tissue injuries (owing principally to its allantoin content). It's an ideal permaculture plant.

Even though comfrey has long been esteemed as a vulnerary, it has come under scrutiny owing to its safety in recent years because of the discovery of the pyrrolizidine alkaloids. These are believed to be hepatoxic (toxic to the liver). Using comfrey externally as a poultice or as a compress has always been safe. However recent scientific studies indicate that comfrey, when ingested in large amounts and over long periods of time will cause liver damage. This is because of the pyrrolizidine alkaloids it contains. These pyrrolizidine alkaloids occur in a number of other plants as well, including ragwort, borage, and coltsfoot. In the 1980s there was a research paper that reported liver damage in laboratory animals that had varying doses of these alkaloids injected into them intravenously. This came as shock to the herbalist community because comfrey has long been regarded as one of the safest herbs. I make a comfrey root and lavender ointment, which I have successfully used to treat bruises, greenstick fractures, cartilage, tendon and ligament wrenches, and skin problems. It is also very good for deep tissue massage as it provides a viscous, healing medium which also contains beeswax and olive oil. Whilst the leaves can be used for a great tasting tea internally, the root is best used externally for safety reasons.

In the permaculture design, I have identified a marginal area which would benefit from comfrey cultivation (see above). The soil is damp, rich, and suitable for harvesting roots. Growing comfrey would eliminate other less useful plants owing to its vigour and the size of its leaves. The area is otherwise a 'neutral' space which would be hard to cultivate other plants owing to the low light intensity, and proximity of the greenhouse.

Comfrey has become an important plant for the organic gardening movement. It has thick, far reaching roots which access minerals deep in the soil, making it rich in potassium and nitrogen. The fast-growing leaves can be cut several times a year to make an organic slug control, liquid fertiliser, leaf mould and compost activator.

Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica)

Stinging Nettle is one of many commonplace plants which are both good for the wildlife garden, and serve as a food & medicine. They are therefore doubly welcome in a permaculture design.

Nettle tea has been used as a medicinal herb for centuries in Europe. An easily made green tea from fresh or dried leaves, nettle tea is loaded with antioxidants and other nutraceuticals that bring benefits to every system in the body. For two weeks in spring while the nettles are young and tender, a cup of nettle tea each day serves as a spring tonic. The vitamins, lutein, lycopene and iron in nettle tea are restorative to the system. Herbalists refer to nettle as an adaptogen, alterative, depurient, or a blood purifier, and it had found a place in many useful formulas, including more recently for hayfever.

Nettles can be used for food, and make an excellent soup although the location of the plant and its growing conditions should determine whether or where it is chosen. I spoke to my landlord once, who had been out on the moors wild- crafting some nettles. He said that evening he made a hearty nettle soup with his wife, and quickly fell into a deep 12 hour sleep from which he felt very refreshed but could remember nothing of the night before. Such reports of mildly sedative properties are not uncommon from wild plant foods. It did lead me to question where he might have picked them from.

As nettle tends to grow around human settlements, and concentrate sometimes toxic residues, care should be taken. In my study area, the nettle stand is next to a farm wall where it appears pesticides are loaded on to tractor booms, so I don't use them for medicine or food, or as fertiliser. They are instead being used as a detoxifying buffer against the wall, and to benefit wildlife.In years to come, and in the absence of any pesticide use at the farm, I would resume using the nettles for food and fertiliser. On the compost heap they supply plentiful ntirogen and silica. Medicines have a higher standard of purity, especially if they are to be concentrated into tinctures or fluid extracts, and I would wait somewhat longer to establish purity of the herbs before making medicines.

Stinging nettles support more than 40 kinds of insects, for whom the sting can form a protective shield against grazing animals.Many nettle patches hold overwintering insects which swarm around fresh spring nettles and provide early food for ladybirds. These same aphids are eaten by blue tits and other woodland birds that dart around the stems. In late summer the huge quantity of seeds produced are food for many seed-eating birds, such as house sparrows, chaffinches, and bullfinches.Nettles are also a magnet for other insect-eaters like hedgehogs, shrews, frogs and toads, at all times of year. Certain moths like nettles, as do many of the UK’s most colourful and best known butterflies, such as the Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock Butterflies. Their larvae feed in large groups in silken tents at the top of the nettle stems.My nettle stand is conveniently out of sight of neighbours who might feel inclined to complain about their untidiness, so can be left to overwinter without a mowing or scything regime.

Nettle can be used as a natural fertiliser in the form of a tea. Fill a bucket with nettle clippings (particularly tops). Add rain water to about 3/4 full. Chop the mixture with hedge clippers. Stir the mixture thoroughly every few days (some say once a day, every day). After about two weeks it is ready to use.When using this mixture, filter out the debris and use only the clearish liquid. The solution is mixed with water in a proportion of 1 : 10 (one part nettle solution to ten parts water). Pour the solution directly at the base of the plants where the roots will have quick use of it. This "tea" is meant as a supplimental feeding for plants that have a high demand for nourishment, such as tomatos, leeks, brassicas, cucumbers and courgettes. Other plants that will appreciate stinging nettle tea include fruit trees and bushes, roses, annuals and perennial flowering plants. It is not really meant to supplement such plants as onions beans and peas.

Donovan: The Song of Wandering Aengus (1971)

Haunting music to the poetry of W. B. Yeats

I wish out to the hazel wood
Because a fire was in my head
And I cut and peeled a hazel wand
And hooked a berry with a thread

And when white moths were on the wing
And moth-like stars were flickering out
I dropped a berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame
But something rustled on the door
And someone called me by my name.

It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossoms in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands
I will find out where she has gone
And kiss her lips and take her hands

And walk among long dappled grass
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

I have only started reading Rob Young’s Electric Eden: A History of Britain’s Visionary Music (for my purposes read: acid folk), but Donovan gets an early mention which alludes to the milieu in which he wrote this otherworldly and inspired music, quoted below.

Donovan’s success after the Dylan- influenced singles such as ‘Catch The Wind’, ‘Colours’, and ‘Universal Soldier’ was in part due to some steerage by his new producer/ svengali Mickie Most, who had urged the young artist to trick out his acoustic folkiness with generous helpings from the new palette of psychedelic colours creeping into pop production in the wake of such records as The Beatles’ Revolver and The Kinks Face To Face. In 1965 he was still immersed in the Woody Guthrie/ Dylan knock- off protest folk of his first LP What’s Bin Did and What’s Bin Did, while on his second, Fairytale, he began to inch towards a more bucolic mode.

… From a landowner named Donald MacDonald, he had just purchased three remote Scottish islands; Islay, Mingay, and Clett, near Skye’s north- west Vaternish peninsula, where he and his friend/ ‘manager’ Gypsy Dave intended to set up a ‘Renaissance community’ of artists, musicians, and poets in a row of tumbledown shepherds’ cottages.

[and of his consequent dreamy musical projects]… These benignly stoned odes fondly and naively imagined a long- lost, bucolic Avalon where like minds of a forever young Flower Generation might gather in peace, singing, dancing, smoking, making love and contemplating the universe in a guilt- free environment.

[after collaboration with the Beatles and Maharishi Yogi in India]… He flew back high as a magic carpet with a pipe- load of Eastern mysticism, and a newly piqued interest in Celtic medievalism and Victoriana, manifested in songs such as ‘Guinevere’, ‘Legend of a Child Girl Linda’, and ‘Season of the Witch’… now with his purchase of a far away island kingdom, Donovan was planning to use his status as a counter- cultural guru to convert the pipedream into a living experiment.

This then was the artist who brought his own stab at Wonderland, the pied piper whose master plan was to sail off to his private fiefdom singing Lewis Carroll’s line ‘Won’t You Join The Dancer?’ and who put up the money for potential acolytes like Vashti Bunyan and Robert Lewis to make the pilgrimage.

The Song of Wandering Aengus appeared on the album H.M.S Donovan, the second album of Donovan's children's music, and was recorded between 1968- 1971.

From Prince Caspian

Lucy’s eyes began to grow accustomed to the light, and she saw the trees that were nearest her more distinctly. A great longing for the days when the trees could talk in Narnia came over her. She knew exactly how each of these trees would talk if only she could wake them, and what sort of human form it would put on. She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face, and fond of dancing. She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his face and hands, and hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah!- she would be the best of all. She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the lady of the wood.

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian.

Tree Lore

"You should see them at the full moon", says the deer park keeper, "The trees look at you in an odd way".

--- Thomas Packenham, Meetings with Remarkable Trees.

There was nothing to alarm him at first entry. Twigs crackled under his feet, logs tripped him, funguses on trunks resembles caricatures, and startled him for the moment by their likeness to something familiar and far away; but it was all fun, and exciting. It led him on, and he penetrated to where the light was less, and trees crouched nearer and nearer, and holes made ugly mouths at him on either side. Everything was very still now. The dusk advanced on him steadily, rapidly, gathering in behind and before; and the light seemed to be drawing away like floodwater.

--- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind In The Willows.

 

John Barleycorn Must Die

Corn dollies or corn mothers are a form of straw work made as part of harvest customs of Europe before mechanisation. Before Christianisation, in traditional pagan European culture it was believed that the spirit of the corn (in modern American English, "corn" would be "grain") lived amongst the crop, and that the harvest made it effectively homeless. James Frazer devotes chapters in The Golden Bough to "Corn-Mother and Corn-Maiden in Northern Europe" (chs. 45-48) and adduces European folkloric examples collected in great abundance by the folklorist Wilhelm Mannhardt. Among the customs attached to the last sheaf of the harvest were hollow shapes fashioned from the last sheaf of wheat or other cereal crops. The corn spirit would then spend the winter in this home until the "corn dolly" was ploughed into the first furrow of the new season. "Dolly" may be a corruption of "idol" or may have come directly from the Greek word eidolon (apparition).

The medieval English ballad is of the crop spirit John Barleycorn, who after being ploughed under the ground grows up again in the spring to be harvested and ultimately turned into homebrewed ale. And so the seasons change...

Lammas Mountain Walk

Lughnasadh customs persisted widely until the 20th century, with the event being variously named 'Garland Sunday', 'Bilberry Sunday', 'Mountain Sunday' and 'Crohm Duh Sunday'. The custom of climbing hills and mountains at Lughnasadh has survived in some areas, although it has been absorbed as a Christian pilgrimage. The best known is the 'Reek Sunday' pilgrimage to the top of Croagh Patrick on the last Sunday in July. A number of fairs are also believed to be survivals of Lughnasadh, for example the Puck Fair.

Ushered along by benevolent sycamore sentinels and the scent of faery heather breezes, we headed up sharp ascents and undulating valleys with our tumbling feet in roots of tree knots and happy minds inspired with wind, water shores and rapier sunshine.