Reputations

Some of our best wild plants are unfairly maligned. Hogweed may not have the delicate beauty of cow parsley but it's not for that it gets treated with suspicion. Common hogweed suffers because of an association with the huge giant hogweed something that can give you a nasty rash. But the native common variety has many virtues. Insects love it and are often to be found on the delicate white florets.

Wild food enthusiasts also speak highly of the flavour of its young shoots and use the seeds in many ways in cooking.

Ragwort is another story. Its gorgeous yellow flowers are a treat to behold in July but it gets a bad press as being toxic to livestock especially horses. Consequently people are exhorted to destroy it and typically those parts of the media that thrive on scare stories spread alarm with shock headlines. Such was the alarm that a Ragwort Control Act was put in force in 2003 with a national code of practice devised for controlling ragwort.

More moderate voices, notably from the charity Buglife, and Friends of the Earth poured scepticism on the exaggerated stories. More recently officaldom has relented and moderated its stand. Buglife points also to the immense value the plants have for invertebrates, pointing out that many insect species rely entirely on ragwort.

Ragwort belongs to the enormous daisy family of plants along with orchids the largest in the world. Many of these are very similar especially yellow ones such that few people claim with certainty exactly which is which often having to resort to magnifying glasses and botanical keys. Still there's no doubt they add to the attractiveness of the wayside. They start with coltsfoot in March and then dandelions followed by many others that superficially resemble the dandelion.

Hogweed is a member of the carrot family helping to explain its being favoured by those who seek out free wild foods.

Another wild flower blooming now is yarrow and it seems to have no blots on its reputation. I had at one time thought the flower yarrow must belong in the carrot family alongside hogweed, cow parsley and other umbellifers, but is actually another member of the daisy family.

Yarrow's pure white flower head and feathery leaves have given it a place in folklore and there are romantic associations of a sprig of yarrow. Its virtues don't end there. According to Culpepper, yarrow...

'stays the shedding of hair, the head being bathed in a decoction of it ...... and the leaves chewed in the mouth eases the toothache.'