Wildflower Wonders
Learn the fascinating history and many uses of Scotland’s varied flora
Polly Pullar teaches the fascinating history and uses for Scotland’s varied flora
IT’S probably fair to assume that most Scots in 2020 have little knowledge of the extraordinary properties, nicknames and lore that surrounds our diverse flora. By the start of the 20th century, most of the strong oral tradition that passed valuable plant knowledge on from generation to generation had already gone.
Sadly, as we become increasingly estranged from nature, we may barely notice the loveliness of the flowers beneath our feet. For many, they were a staple without which they could not survive.
The diversity of Scotland’s habitats makes it a botanist’s paradise. There are more than 3500 species of wild flowers, ranging from the rare Arctic alpines of the vertiginous slopes of Ben Lawers in Highland Perthshire, to the minute Edmonston’s chickweed.
This species only grows among the serpentine rocks of the Keen of Hamar on Shetland’s island of Unst.
Then there’s the diverse flora of the low-lying, lime-rich machair of the north-western seaboard.
From bog to wood, meadow, field, hedgerow, and roadside verge, wildflowers colonise any available space – if we let them.
Flowers were once viewed as both good and bad omens, recognised for their curative powers and used extensively in folk medicine and witchcraft. They were used to induce alcoholic stupors, hallucinations, and unnatural highs.
Plants provided dietary staples, too. For example, silverweed – a member of the rose family that grows in
wasteland and on coastlines, had numerous benefits. The 19th-century folklorist Alexander Carmichael wrote, “blest silverweed of spring, one of the seven breads of the Gael”.
Its roots were boiled or roasted and are said to taste like parsnips. They were ground into meal to make rough bread, and used by poor crofting families as barter against other goods. When Martin Martin – a pioneering traveller from Skye – voyaged to St Kilda during the 1600s, he found the islanders eating silverweed roots with “gibben” or seabird fat. Nicknamed Traveller’s Ease, the thick silvery leaves were used to line shoes, most famously by marching Romans as an early version of padded insoles.
Primroses, nicknamed spinkies, were thought to cure anxiety and stress, the leaves used as a compress for easing rheumatics, and other aches. Once they were so abundant, people could earn extra money by picking primrose posies and sending them by train to city markets. Primroses symbolise innocence, the fears of early youth, as well as a sense of being forsaken.
Most of the vernacular names used for red clover refer to its importance to bees and other pollinators: honey stalks, bee-bread and suck bottles. Red clover’s uses included treatment for respiratory and skin conditions. Today, it is still used to ease menopause symptoms.
Next time you see swathes of cottongrass dancing over a bog, remember it was once gathered by children during the First World War and used for wound dressings. Called caineachan in Gaelic, it could also be woven into cloth. Its common names are draw moss and lukkis.
Another flower of boggy places is butterwort. This carnivorous plant traps midges in its sticky leaves, encasing them in a shroud they cannot escape. It also contains enzymes that help to curdle milk and it was used as a rennet substitute during the cheese-making process.
Meadowsweet, with its delicious honey-rich aroma, gets its common name because it was once used to flavour mead. Paradoxically, it was also an excellent hangover cure. Also known as whin and furze, the dry, prickly bushes would be cut to fuel bakers’ ovens and were regularly employed as brushes to clean chimneys.
Some might remember the seeds of Rosehips being used as itching powder, hence the nickname itchy coos. More importantly, during the Second World War a ministry of health initiative encouraged people to make rosehip syrup – a valuable source of vitamin C.
Dandelions have many uses and many names refer to their diuretic properties – pee-the-bed, pissy-beds, tiddle-beds. In contrast, others relate to the fairy-like seed head that is picked and blown into the wind by
children: peasant’s clock, swine’s snout, and old man’s clock. This cheery bloom represents faithfulness and happiness. The leaves and flowers are edible and, during the war years, the ground roots made a coffee substitute. The common name of the little celandine – is pilewort, hinting at its use for treating haemorrhoids. Flowers often feature in Scots songs and Will You Go Lassie Go, refers to wild mountain thyme. This aromatic plant believed to cure dyspepsia is still a favourite herb to flavour meat. It is also eaten by the caterpillars of the six-spot burnet moth.
Bird’s foot trefoil is a food caterpillars” plant for
The gorgeous bluebell was called crawtraes, granfer griddlesticks and gowk’s hose – the latter relates to the cuckoo, called gowk in Scots. And red campion is nicknamed adders’ flower, because it blooms when adders emerge from their winter sleep. Oxeye daisy, called moon daisy and muckle gowan, was believed to repel lightning if hung by a building.
Foxglove is used to this day as a heart stimulant and, nicknamed, witches’ thimbles, bloody man’s fingers, and fairy bells, it is a mystical flower associated with sorcery.
After woodland felling operations leave barren scars on the landscape, foxglove seeds that have lain dormant for years, spring to life and transform the scene of empty devastation to a glowing pinky-red.
Bird’s foot trefoil, of the pea family, is a little flower with a big personality. Rich in nectar, it’s a valuable food plant for several species of caterpillar and is found in grasslands countrywide. It has accrued plenty of names – craw’s taes, hennies, eggs and bacon, grannie’s toenails, knives and forks and horse yakkels – teeth.
This summer, when garden centres are shut for lockdown, we can appreciate our wild botanical treasures. There’s more to so-called weeds than meets the eye.