Common Tansy/Rejnfan
Tanacetum vulgare

Common Tansy has got many names, Bitter Buttons, Cow Bitter, Mugwort, Golden Buttons. The flowers look like small golden buttons, a fine name for it. The whole plant has a bitter taste and a strong spicy smell. Tansy is native to Eurasia, but is found in almost all parts of mainland Europe. It is common along roads, in field boundaries, banks, but also at the beach.

Common Tansy has a long history of many uses. The ancient Greeks may have been the first to cultivate it as a medicinal herb; the Benedictine monks at St. Gall in Switzerland considered common tansy a cure for many health problems. Because of its repellent abilities it was also used as a vermifuge. Only Tanacetum vulgare is used for medicinal purpose; all species of tansy are toxic.

Common tansy has been cultivated and used for its bug repellent and preservative effects. It was placed on window sills to repell flies, sprigs were placed in bed linen to drive away pests, and it was also useful in gardens as an ant repellent. Common tansy was plant alongside the potatoes to repel the Colorado potato bug. Some insects, notably the tansy beetle, have evolved resistance to tansy and live almost exclusively on it. Bee-keepers have used the dried leaves in order to calm the bees.

In the kitchen it was a flavouring for puddings and omelets, and as a spice in lamb and venison. In Yorkshire tansy and caraway seeds were traditionally in biscuits served at funerals. Meat was rubbed with tansy which kept it from rot for a time, or maybe the strong smell of the herb drowned the stench of meat, which was a bit off! Flowers and leaves are fine for spicing a snaps.

The dried yellow flowers are pretty in floral arrangements. The flowers dye various yellow or green shades.

NB: The plant can provoke contact-allergy. The leaves and flowers are said to be poisonous if consumed in large quantities. The plant's volatile oil is high in thujone, a substance found in absinthe that can cause convulsions.

photo : Skern Ådal, August 2006: grethe bachmann

Bog Arum/Kærmysse
Calla palustris

Bog Arum, (there is one single flower!)

Bog Arum is a marsh plant which is important in the formation of wet hængesæk ( water under tangled roots) .It's native to Northern Europe, and its habitat is spruce swamps, marshes, brooksides, muddy pond margins, often nutrient rich places. Bog arum has a widely creeping rhizome, which develops branches that break off easily and form independent individuals when the main stem dies. The flower is pollinated by insects and the red seeds are spread by birds when they eat the berries; also the seeds are sticky and catch easily to the bird's feet, and the plant is spread to other damp habitats.

The whole plant, especially the berry, is poisonous to humans. The Latin name Calla was by the Romans used for another unknown water plant. The name palustris means growing in marsh.
For moist spongy spots near the rock garden, or by the side of a rill, it is one of the best plants, but its beauty is best seen when it is allowed to ramble over rich, muddy soil.

The bog arum is a poisonous plant but still its rootstock has been used as pig food and also as extra flour for making bread

Bog Arum/Kærmysse is scarce in Denmark.


photo Aqua Mose, Silkeborg August 2009: grethe bachmann

Bog-Bilberry/Mosebølle
Vaccinium uliginosum

Aqua Mose at Silkeborg , a place with lots of Bog-Bilberry, Bilberry, Cowberry and Cranberry. Furthermore the aromatic Sweet Gale and many other exciting plants.

Bog-bilberry is native to Europe and North America, where it grows on acidic soils on heathland, moorland, tundra and in the understory of coniferous forests. It grows together with i.e. bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), heather, sandsedge, Scotch pine and Lingonberry (Cowberry) . Its a small deciduous shrub growing to 10-75 cm tall, rarely 1 m tall with brown stems (unlike the green stems of the closely related Bilberry). The flowers in mid spring are pale pink , and the fruit is a dark blue-black berry with a white flesh, edible but often with an insipid or watery taste.


A berry-picker in Aqua Mose

The Danish name for Bog-bilberry is Mosebølle, but in the old days it had various names referring to it as a dangerous berry. It was not considered fine and valuable as bilberry. But the two berries are easy to confuse. In some regions in Denmark people actually did not distinguish, but in other regions bog-bilberry was considered poisonous and causing headache. In Jutland it was slightingly called Hundebær (dog-berry).

In Jutland, during the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s bog-bilberry was sold to tourists , dressed as bilberry. At that time the tourists in Jutland mainly came from Copenhagen for their luxurious holidays on the attractive seaside hotels and summer resorts. They were easy to cheat, and bog-bilberry was sold in large amounts at sky-high prices. Even today bog-bilberry is sold in some rural places in North Jutland to unsuspecting tourists, who believe them to be the delicious and healthy bilberry.

Some say it is easy to know bilberry from bog-bilberry; bilberry is delicious, bog-bilberry has an insipid or watery taste. Others say that the taste only separates a trifle. This must be a matter of taste!


Bilberry/Blåbær
stig bachmann nielsen, Naturplan foto


Bog-Bilberry/Mosebølle
stig bachmann nielsen, Naturplan foto

Differences.
Bog-bilberry has brown stems, bilberry has green stems with edges.
Bog-bilberry has often an insipid/watery taste, bilberry has a delicious taste.
Bog-bilberry is faintly poisonous, bilberry is one of the healthiest berries of all.

Bilberry colours your teeth!
The autumn leaves of Bilberry have the prettiest autumn colours in yellow, orange and red.

See Liber Herbarum as to the faintly poisonous bog-bilberry. Maybe you don't get sick by eating a small portion, but moderation in all things!


photo Aqua Mose 1. august 2009: grethe bachmann

Watercress/ Brøndkarse
Nasturtium officinale

- a brook almost overgrown in watercress.

Watercress is native from Europe to central Asia and one of the oldest known leaf vegetables. The plant is a member of the cabbage family, related to garden cress and mustard, known for their peppery flavour. It is not related to Tropaeolum, popularly known as "nasturtiums".
Watercress grows mainly in running water, with its long creeping, hollow stalks floating on the surface. The small flowers are white or green - and like many plants in this family the foliage of watercress becomes bitter when the plants begin producing flowers. If unharvested, watercress can grow to a height of 50-120 cm.

Watercress thrives in clean, running water, but can be cultivated in a garden or in a pot. The plant is immensely rich in minerals and vitamins and works fine in the kitchen. Watercress has more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk and three times as much vitamin E as lettuce. It's packed with vitamins A and C, and is low in calories. It is dealed fresh and the young shots are used before flowering. Its taste is spicy and piquante, it can be used raw or cooked in salads, soup, shellfish and as a green sprinkle; suits for Hamburg parsley, pork, champignons, chicken, grill, fish and dressing. The seeds kan germinate like common cress and the dry seeds can be crushed to a mustard. One of Britain's best known dishes, watercress soup, became very popular in the 17th century when it was claimed to cleanse the blood. Watercress was once popular as a tea, freshly made with lemon and sugar. It was drunk as a tonic to ease aches and pains.

NB: It is not advisable to gather watercress out in nature unless it is absolutely certain that no animals are upstreams, especially sheep. People can get a deadly serious infection from a liver parasite. (The parasite dies by cooking.)

The juice from watercress is used in bathing soaps, and the cooked plant in baths for soar muscles. It has a long-standing reputation as a hair-tonic, helping to promote the growth of thick hair when rubbed on the head. Watercress cooked in milk and added honey is used for a face lotion, which keeps the skin soft and brightens freckles. Victorians actually thought the plant could remove freckles, and they also used it as a cure for toothache and hiccups. Eating a bag of watercress is said to be a good cure for a hang-over.


Dollerup Bæk

When Hippocrates founded the first hospital on the island of Kos around 400 BC, he grew wild watercress in the natural springs and used it to treat blood disorders. As a medicinal plant watercress has been traditionally considered a diuretic, expectorant, purgative, stimulant, stomachic and tonic. It has also been used as a remedy against anemia, eczema, kidney and liver disorders, tuberculosis, boils, warts and tumors. It is commonly detoxicating and strengthening by long illness. According to Pliny the smoke of burning cress keeps away serpents.

According to the book "James Cook and the Conquest of Scurvy", Captain James Cook was able to circumnavigate the Globe three times, due in part, to his use of watercress in his sailors diets. Maybe he had read about the Persian king Xerxes who ordered his soldiers to eat watercress to keep them healthy during their long marches. It was also used by soldiers in general to both prevent and cure scurvy. Irish monks were said to survive for long periods eating only bread and watercress and referred to watercress as"pure food for sages". Lord Byron was quoted as saying that watercress "doth restore the bloom to the cheeks of a young maiden". He also called it the "Herb that while young is friendly to life."

Superstition:
Watercress belongs to the Moon. It is connected to the water's elementary creatures, the Undines. If it is worn in a red flannelbag it protects people who sail or flies over water. It gives insight in the nature of water. If watercress is eaten by day peoples' dreams will be more provident, mysterious and visionary. The plant increases empathy and understanding.

Anglo-Saxons swore by watercress potage to "spring clean" the blood. The British vegetarian writer Colin Spencer says that the Romans treated insanity with vinegar and watercress. Roman emperors ate it to help them make "bold decisions". Watercress is believed by many to be an aphrodisiac and in Crete, islanders swear by its powers and ancient recipes are handed down from one generation to the next. The Greeks had a saying that "Eating cress makes one witty". According to Cretan legend watercress grew in the springs of the Dikton Cave on Crete where the god Zeus is said to have eaten the plant to fortify himself against his murderous father Cronos.


"When I ask for a water cress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.”
Oscar Wilde



photo Dollerup Bæk, 25. July 2009: grethe bachmann

Dyer's Broom/ Farve-Visse
Genista tinctoria



Dyer's Broom is also named Dyer's Greenweed. It has pretty butter-yellow flowers and it grows all over Europe where it is found in heaths and fringes, along roads and the edges of woods and in light oak- and pine woods. All parts of the plant are poisonous.

The plant was always used for dyeing linen and wool, already the Romans knew these qualities. Dyer's broom provides a useful yellow dye which is fast, and it was grown commercially for this purpose in parts of Britain into the early 19th century. The woollen cloth mordanted with alum was dipped yellow with dyer's broom. In England linen and wool were dyed yellow with dyer's broom, then dipped into a vat of blue dye - woad or later indigo - to produce the once famous Kendal Green, which was superseded by the brighter Saxon Green in the 1770s. Kendal Green is a local common name for the plant. With an after care with iron-sulphate the dye becomes dark brown and with copper sulphate olivegreen.

In Welsh mythology Blodeuweed is the name of a woman made from the flowers of broom, meadowsweet and the oak by Math ab Mathonwy and Gwydion to be the wife of Llen Llaw Gyffes. Her story is part of the Mabinogi, the tale of Math, son of Mathonwy.

A traditional hymn from Sussex says:
Sweep the house with blossed broom in May
Sweep the head of the household away.
Despite this it was also common to include a decorated bundle of broom at weddings.

Ashes of broom were used to treat dropsy, while its strong smell was said to be able to tame wild horses and dogs.

In folk medicine dyer's broom was used for numerous diseases like many other herbs. Besides this it was used as a coffe-substitute and a culinary herb. The plant is poisonous so they might need a treatment after a cup of coffee or a spray of broom-spice on the dish!



photo Trehøje, Mols 11. July 2009: grethe bachmann