The Fresh Issue

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i: Editorial

Hold fast to the fresh Kyra Pollitt A lot has happened since our last issue, hasn’t it?

Here at HNHQ we hold ever tighter to Gaia and send love and solidarity to all caught up in the barbarity of human geo-politics (see The Climate Column for more on this). Our thoughts are, of course, with Ukraine, and also with those fleeing Putin’s Russia— like the family of our Artist of the Month, Anastasiia Morozova. We hope all find peace, refuge, and the solace of nature.

Anastasiia’s beautiful, delicate drawings and paintings make a mouth-watering addition to this month’s Fresh issue, where we focus on the Periwinkle (Vinca major and V. minor) and the mouth.

While Marianne Hughes introduces us to our Herb of the Month, ably assisted by Hazel Brady’s dancing illustration, Dora Wagner (Anthroposophical Views) talks us through…well, talking— and all the other amazing things our mouths do. As ever, Ella Leith Forages through Folklore to find something a little darker, exploring superstitions and practices involving spittle and spitting. You have been warned.

Elsewhere, the Periwinkle creeps its way through this issue, popping up to offer fortitude, courage, and comfort in Rose Morley’s Flower Power column; sneaking into a fairy story Amanda Edmiston had thought was about something else (Botanica Fabula); and weaving through the spine of a beautifully alternative acrostic poem by Lesley Mountain (Red Squirrel Presents…).

Elaine McGillivray has been out and about spotting wildflowers of her own, inspired by pioneering botanist Joan Wendoline Clark (In Focus). She might, perhaps, take a visit to the verges left untended by the council where Callum Halstead (Sage Advice) has spotted all kinds of variety. Whilst Callum encourages us to establish wildlife havens in our own back gardens, Ella Leith has been hacking her way through to the Mother Tree of Suzanne Simard’s autobiographical work (Book Club).

Meanwhile, Ann King has been foraging in the undergrowth for the first shoots of spring to bring us a recipe for Green Sauce (Notes from the Brew Room). And while you’re in the kitchen, Claire Gormley has the science behind getting that smell off your ‘Garlic fingers’ (The Chemistry Column).

Have hope and hold fast to the green, to the fresh.

Honorary Executive: Editorial team: Illustration: Finance and Distribution:

Catherine Conway-Payne Kyra Pollitt, Ella Leith, Maddy Mould and Anastasia Joyce Maddy Mould Marianne Hughes

Herbology News is printed on FSC certified, carbon neutral, recycled paper, using non-polluting vegetable-based inks, made from renewable sources.

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i: Contents

i Editorial Frontispiece Contents

Kyra Pollitt Maddy Mould

2 3 4

ii Artist of the Month

Anastasiia Morozova

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iii Herb of the Month

Marianne Hughes, Hazel Brady

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iv Anthroposophical Views Notes from the Brew Room Flower Power

Dora Wagner Ann King Rose Morley

14 18 20

v In focus: Joan Wendoline Clark Sage Advice

Elaine MacGillivray Callum Halstead

22 27

vi The Climate Column The Chemistry Column

Patrick Dunne Claire Gormley

31 33

vii Foraging Through Folklore Botanica Fabula Red Squirrel Presents…

Ella Leith Amanda Edmiston Lesley Mountain

36 39 42

viii Book Club Ella Leith reviews Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard (Allen Lane, 2021) ix Contributors Our Patrons Looking Forward

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48 52 52

Herbology News is against war

We promote PEACE, LOVE and HERBS 5

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Anastasiia Morozova Avocado

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ii: Artist of the Month

Anastasiia Morozova www.anastasiiamorozova.com Inspired by Cabinets of Curiosities, natural history illustrations, Russian fairy tales and folklore, Anastasiia is an Italian-based artist who creates botanical and wildlife studies in various different media.

In her own words, Anastasiia explains her process and the roots of her love of painting the natural world: Everything in nature is a miracle. The world is full of mysterious and precious treasures that adults tend to overlook. By illustrating small pieces of natural ecosystems, I like to tease the viewer’s curiosity towards the small natural wonders around us and, by doing so, draw attention to the beauty and fragility that we so often take for granted.

All of my work begins, simply, with a line on a piece of paper. Before opening my sketchbook, I like to observe. I approach nature with the curiosity of a biologist and the wonder of a child, and it is this perspective that has helped me to find my own approach to illustration.

I was born and raised in the Ural mountains of Russia, in close contact with nature. As a child I had a great deal of curiosity about the natural world; I spent a lot of time outdoors, walking in the forest, and, with guidance and encouragement from my grandmothers, I learned to identify plants and mushrooms. And I loved to create things by hand. When faced with the prospect of imagining what profession I might move toward in my future, I was lost. I couldn’t imagine a profession that could combine my two biggest passions: nature and creativity.

When the time came for higher education, the only thing I could see myself doing was art.

I entered the Academy of Fine Arts in my hometown, where I mastered classical art disciplines, and studied the history of art. I continued to pursue my studies in Paris, where I obtained a Master’s in Contemporary Art Management. Three years of studying and working in various art galleries and art fairs in Paris and New York taught me many valuable lessons about the art world. Living in these amazing cities, and working in the art industry, was a precious experience, but I began to miss the core of my passion: nature and creativity.

Moving to Apulia— a small town in Italy —with my husband, I finally combined my two major passions into my dream career. I created my art project Natura Illustrata. Being part of this community allowed me to discover the many opportunities nature illustration can bring— from pattern design to editorial projects. Although I began as a watercolourist, I soon mastered other techniques such as gouache, linoprinting, and digital art. My ability to switch between different techniques gives me the freedom to express my vision and choose the right medium for each project. One of the most exciting parts of my work is seeing my sketches take shape and transform: perhaps into a pattern on a product, or an illustration for a book, or a painting on a wall. Once I have a finished piece of work, I retrace the journey that the illustration has made. Returning to the first step of my illustration process will, more often than not, lead me to a simple pencil sketch— and yet that sketch marks the beginning of endless possibilities.

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ii: Artist of the Month

Regardless of its size, each project is a journey that opens doors. Welcoming in the potential for new possibilities, ideas, connections, and people. Through making my art, I want to transmit my love for nature to others, and draw attention to the importance of protecting and respecting nature. I particularly want to share these values with younger generations, which is why my current dream is to illustrate an educational book for children about plants and animals.

Since 2020, Anastasiia has been sharing her knowledge and experience with others through online and in-person classes. The classes are available on Etchr, and Anastasiia will be launching her first Skillshare class in March.

Anastasiia’s original paintings, as well as prints and stickers, are available for purchase in her Etsy shop, at naturaillustrata You can also follow Anastasiia’s journey through Instagram and on Facebook @natura.illustrata Cover image Mandarin Mixed media on paper Other images Avocado Mixed media on paper The Artist in her Natural Habitat Peas in a Pod Pencil sketch on paper Daphne Sfondo Trasparente Mixed media on paper Red Onion Mixed media on paper Amanita grande Mixed media on paper Painting the Acorn Mixed media on paper, in progress Wild Mushroom Mixed media on paper

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Anastasiia Morozova The Artist in her Natural Habitat

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iii: Herb of the Month

Periwinkle (Vinca major and Vinca minor) Marianne Hughes, with illustration by Hazel Brady Both Vinca major (Greater Periwinkle) and Vinca minor (Lesser Periwinkle) provide yearround, evergreen, low-growing ground cover, with the added advantage of beautiful blue, violet or white flowers which can often appear in winter, though more usually in March and April. These plants are not to be confused with Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) which is widely used for its anti-cancer properties. Though they are related, and both contain alkaloids, the cytotoxic dimeric alkaloids present in the Madagascar Periwinkle have not been found in V. major (Wren, 1994).

The Latin for Periwinkle was pervinca, derived from vincire, meaning ‘to bind’, because its long trailing shoots can be used to make wreaths. Indeed, Kelleher (2020) notes: ‘In Italy, she is called fiore di morte (flower of death), because it was common to lay wreaths of the evergreen on the graves of dead children.’ But Periwinkle also has other names and entirely other associations: you might know her by one of her more fabulous monikers, like sorcerer’s violet or fairy’s paintbrush…The flower is sometimes associated with marriage (and may have been the ‘something blue’ in the traditional wedding rhyme), sometimes associated with sex work (because of its supposed aphrodisiac properties) and also with executions (ibid.)

Unlikely as it would seem, Bown (2008) even cites one medieval spell that recommends Periwinkle mashed with earthworms and Sempervivum tectorum as a love potion for married couples.

Culpeper (1653) adds: Venus owns this herb. It is a great binder, and stays bleeding at the mouth and nose, if it be chewed. It is good female medicine….an infusion is good to stay the menses. It is good in nervous disorders; the young tops

made into a conserve is good for the night-mare.

Indeed, Allen and Hatfield (2004) outline a lengthy medicinal history of Periwinkle. This includes widespread reference to Periwinkle as ‘Cutfinger’ since, in parts of England, the crushed or infused leaves were applied to minor cuts and sores, and to bruises and persistent skin irritations in the Scottish Highlands. They comment further that the leaves have a sedative effect when chewed and were valued in Devon for nervous disorders and for sufferers of nightmares, and in Oxfordshire for toothache. Periwinkle also had a reputation for keeping away cramp, though these remedies take different forms— from a decoction of the stem to be drunk, to the winding of the stem around the afflicted part of the body (ibid.).

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iii: Herb of the Month The active constituents of V. major are alkaloids and tannins, the latter providing its astringency.

Pengelly (2004) notes that plant alkaloids usually have profound physiological actions in humans, most prominently on the nervous system. For example, V. major contains reserpine, the action of which lowers high blood pressure. V. major and V. minor both contain numerous other alkaloids including vincamine, majdine, and majoridine— all of which are antihemorrhagic and astringent.

This would confirm Culpeper’s observations, although whether Pengelly would concur with Culpeper’s astrological assertions is doubtful.

More recently, vincamine has been used to develop the semi-synthetic derivative pharmaceutical drug known as Vinpocetine.

Whilst a preliminary study of Vinpocetine on people with Alzheimer's disease showed no benefit, a later double-blind trial showed vincamine itself to be beneficial (WebMD, 2018).

So, whether you are looking for useful evergreen ground cover or a useful remedy for a sore mouth, Periwinkle may just be the answer. But be warned— those trailing shoots spread so successfully Periwinkle can be experienced as an invasive plant.

References Allen, D.E. and Hatfield, G. (2004) Medicinal; Plants in Folk Tradition: An Ethnobotany of Britain and Ireland. Timber Press: London Bown, D. (2008) Encyclopaedia of Herbs.

Royal Horticultural Society, Dorling Kindersley: London Culpeper, N. (1653) Culpeper’s Complete Herbal: consisting of A comprehensive description of nearly all herbs with their medicinal properties and directions for compounding the medicines extracted from them. Foulsham & Co.: Slough Hoffman, D. (2002) Holistic Herbal. Thorsons: London Kelleher, K. (2020) ‘Periwinkle; the Color of Poison, Modernism, and Dusk’, in The Paris Review (August 19th, 2020) accessed online,10.2.2022.

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Pengelly, A. (2004) The Constituents of Medicinal Plants: An introduction to the chemistry and therapeutics of herbal medicine. CABI Publishing: Oxfordshire WebMD (2018) ‘Vinpocetine— Uses, Side Effects, and More’, accessed online, 18.2.2022 Wren, R.C. (1994) Potter’s New Cyclopaedia of Botanical Drugs and Preparations. C.W. Daniel: Saffron Walden

Anastasiia Morozova Peas in a Pod

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iv: Anthroposophical Views

Lip service Dora Wagner You may lie with your tongue, but you tell the truth with the mouth you draw.

Nietzsche (1886)

Eating, drinking, suckling, chewing, sucking, licking, smacking, slurping, nibbling, swallowing, spitting, talking, screaming, laughing, singing, whistling, pouting, kissing.

As a communication centre, database, research laboratory, amusement park, energy supplier, and health hub, the mouth performs a multitude of vital specialised tasks. The lips, teeth, and tongue of the oral cavity constitute a uniquely diverse facility; one that is not only an extremely attractive, pleasurable, and passionate part of the body, but also one of its most versatile organs.

From a sensory perspective, our mouth is an information giant. Like no other organ, it is peppered with sensory cells that constantly transmit an incredible amount of highresolution motion, temperature, touch, and taste data to our nervous system. The precision of detail of these stimuli is unsurpassed— greater even than the sensation of our fingertips. In fact, the receptors on our lips and tongue are so sensitive and plentiful that two stimuli generated only half a millimetre apart are nonetheless separable and distinct (Schwegler, 2016). The abundance and subtlety of perceptions that tongue and lips transmit to the brain correspond to the variety of tasks these organs undertake.

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The movements of the mouth and lips during speech must be extremely finely controlled and constantly readjusted. Without the complex interplay of tongue and lip muscles, precise positional perception, and lightningfast tracking, we would at best slur our words, and never manage to sing. Speech articulation is formed in the interaction of jaw, lips, tongue, and soft palate. By opening and closing, rounding, and spreading our lips, we can make different sounds from the passage of breath. Rounding the lips, for example, is particularly important in the articulation of spoken vowels. The curving of the lips gives more resonance to the voice, acting like a sound funnel, in a similar way to a megaphone. The soft palate regulates the participation of our noses in making sounds.

By lowering it, our nasal cavities also become spaces of resonance, gifting some spoken languages particular speech sounds, but also changing the timbre, and character of the noises we make. Our tongue is considered the most active organ of articulation. It is extremely mobile and can change its shape remarkably. All vowels are formed through the interaction of lips and tongue, and the tongue is also decisive in the shaping of most consonants.

iv: Anthroposophical Views Being mucous membranes of the mouth turned outwards, our lips are very sensitive.

Their signalling effect and contrast to the surrounding skin is unique. In all cultures the lips are seen as an intimate space, conveying sexual stimulation. They are one of the most groomed and made-up parts of our bodies; we often colour them intense shades of red as a symbol of sensuality. Indeed, no other area has as many nerve endings as the tongue and mouth. The lips are also among the first parts a human can move and control. So, in the first months and years of life, the ‘oral stage’, children learn best about their environment by exploring it with their mouths. In Freudian psychoanalysis, the infant's mouth is described as the primary erogenous zone (Freud, 2009).

Our oral cavity is also involved in digestion and in supporting our immune system. The tongue, lips, and teeth are fully occupied during food intake. Food must first be picked up and retained, then chopped, crushed, and mixed with saliva into a liquid pulp before the swallowing reflex forces it out of the oral cavity and into the oesophagus. In all of this process, the tongue does some really hard graft: it checks the temperature to prevent burning of the palate and oesophagus; presses the food between the teeth; contributes saliva from special glands as a lubricant; senses whether there are dangerous foreign bodies such as fish bones or bone splinters in the food pulp; shapes the liquefied food pulp; and, finally, pushes it to the ‘swallowing position’ in the throat. On the way, with the help of its countless taste buds, the tongue has ensured that only tasty substances, not unsavoury or dangerous ones, enter the stomach. What tastes sour may be unripe, spoiled or too acidic; bitter foods may contain toxic substances; overly salty foods threaten to attack the stomach. Sweet foods, in contrast, have a purely recommendatory character— they indicate carbohydrates and, thus, important energy supplies.

Saliva is a valuable tool in the work of teeth, lips, and tongue. In addition to the three large salivary glands, many tiny glands distributed

in the oral mucosa ensure that our mouths become wet. Saliva is actually 99.5% water; the rest is mucus, enzymes, fluorides, bicarbonates and antibodies. If you chew on a dry piece of bread for a long time, you will eventually notice a slightly sweet taste. This is the digestive enzyme amylase breaking down the starch into sugar. As well as providing the lubrication for chewing, swallowing, and speaking, spittle performs a considerable range of tasks: it keeps the oral mucosa moist; dissolves flavours from food making them perceptible to us; protects the oral cavity and teeth from aggressive substances; and supports the body's immune defence with germ-killing substances. In one day, our bodies may produce up to two litres of this important liquid (Schwegler, 2016), with the largest amount produced before and during eating. However, other things can make our mouth water. The flow of saliva can be triggered by just a thought, an image, or a sound that reminds us of something we crave.

This was famously demonstrated by Russian physiologist and Nobel Prize winner Ivan Pavlov, in experiments with his dogs. Pavlov had a bell ring at the same time as he fed his dogs, and discovered that, after only a short time, the dogs began to drool at the sound of the bell alone.

Our mouth, lips and teeth also have significant external and social functions. Stimulated by the mimic muscles and moved by a complicated and constantly active muscular system, specific movements of our lips express our emotions. We pout when angry, 15

iv: Anthroposophical Views pull the corners of the mouth upwards when smiling, pull them downwards when sad. In fact, it even works the other way round. If we make an effort to move our mouths into a smile, it lifts our mood and those of the people around us. Relaxed lips radiate serenity; a tense mouth or compressed lips look nervous and insecure; and if you grit your teeth, you have a lot to bear. And, last but not least, our lips give us one of the most beautiful experiences of all: kissing! For that alone, we should celebrate them every now and then.

To ensure that no discomfort or harm is caused in our oral cavity, good oral care is important.

There are countless microorganisms in our mouths, which together form the ‘oral flora’. An imbalance here can lead to caries, gingivitis or bad breath. These inconveniences can be prevented with the support of herbal helpers, and some plants can alleviate the discomfort of existing problems and disorders.

Ratanhia (Krameria lappacea), Myrrh (Commiphora myrrha), Sage (Salvia officinalis), Calendula (Calendula officinalis), and Echinacea (E. spp.) are found in anthroposophical remedies for the care, treatment, and support of the oral cavity.

Three Coneflower species, in particular, are used: Narrow-leaved Coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia), Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) and Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). These iconic herbs, also praised for their beauty, have been adopted

by European phytotherapy from indigenous North American folk medicine (Kindscher, 1989).

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In Europe, Coneflowers are cultivated mainly for their ornamental value, transforming our gardens into a sea of pink and purple for most of the summer. At the top of each metre-long stem, single, large, truly impressive composite flowers bloom from July to September. The contrast between the brownish-orange tubular florets and the pinkish-purple dropdown marginal ray leaves characterises these headstrong beauties. When fully open, fifteen to twenty pendulous ray florets enclose a spherical, domed flower base, like the brim of a hat. Like many of our own medicinal plants, from Daisies (Bellis perennis) to Arnica (Arnica montana), Coneflowers belong to the family of composite plants (Compositae). Whereas our native Asteraceae form a flat flower disk in which individual florets are grouped into a unity, the individual florets of Echinacea consist of amazingly hard, pointed flower tubes that prickle spikily in all directions. This explains why in Germany a Coneflower is also called ‘Hedgehog Head’. I wonder if the Native Americans knew the resemblance to these animals, these masters of defence, and surmised that this plant would strengthen our own defences against invading strangers. Is this Paracelsus’ Doctrine of Signatures at work?

Long, narrow, drooping pale-pink petals are characteristic of Echinacea pallida, which is cultivated as a medicinal plant in anthroposophical herb gardens. Thriving best in a sunny, warm, not moist site, rich in nutrients, it is the only Echinacea species that has white pollen. On windy days, the almost walnut-sized flower heads demand all the

iv: Anthroposophical Views power of its deep root and its strong, slender, stem, which, like its lanceolate leaves, is very rough-haired. Another special feature of this herb is revealed in the amazing behaviour of its scent. At the beginning of flowering, when the tongues of the marginal flowers are stretched upwards, the capitulum is almost scentless. When fully developed, however, the tongues fold back and hang somewhat limply downwards, now exuding a delicate honey bouquet, which magically attracts bees, butterflies, and other insects. As soon as the capitula's flowers are pollinated by their busy helpers, the scent takes on a beguiling vanillalike aroma, till the plants form offspring by self-seeding.

Inflammation in the mouth is not primarily caused by viruses or bacteria, but can be the result of food intolerances, ingredients in toothpaste, stress, injuries to the oral mucosa, or even a sign of a weakened immune system.

Acute respiratory infections are among the most common illnesses in all age groups. The mucous membranes of the entire upper respiratory tract are usually affected to varying extents. Clinical symptoms are often a sore throat and pain in the mouth and pharynx.

Echinacea Mouth and Throat spray is an anthroposophical remedy to support acute and chronic inflammations in the oral cavity.

The spray contains a tincture of Echinacea pallida ex herba, which has been proven to stimulate the immune system and to help overcome local inflammatory processes. It is composed with extracts of Calendula officinalis e floribus to promote granulation— the formation of new connective tissue as wounds heal —and Sage (Salvia officinalis e follis), well known for its astringent properties.

The remedy further contains a homeopathic dilution of Eucalyptus leaves (Eucalyptus globulus), which has an antimicrobial effect against various microorganisms and whose essential oil has a calming effect on the human warmth organisation.

According to anthroposophy, the spray has a harmonising effect on inflammatory changes in the mucous membranes of mouth, throat, and tonsils. In acute processes it stimulates healing, prevents or reduces susceptibility to diseases

and infections, and even counteracts chronic inflammatory processes (Vogel, 1994).

As the plants are also successfully cultivated in almost all garden soils in our countries, it is easy to prepare your own formula. To produce a home-remedy for oral ulcers and inflammation, you will need equal parts of Echinacea, Calendula and Sage tinctures. Mix the three in a spray bottle, and spray into your mouth three to five times a day. The pain should be relieved immediately, and the discomfort completely cured in a few days. All three of these herbs have a strong cleansing effect, as well as antiseptic, antibiotic, and antiviral properties. The purifying properties of each contribute to erasing irritation and enhancing healing: Calendula soothes our aches and pains; Sage helps us get back into shape; Purple Coneflower is a supportive and powerful guardian angel, helping our immune system become strong again, supporting the fight against inflammation and healing our wounds.

Images Drawings and collages made by Dora Wagner using Wikipedia commons References Freud, S. (2009) Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie. Frankfurt am Main Kindscher, K. (1989) ‘Ethnobotany of Purple Coneflower and Other Echinacea Species’, in Economic Botany, 43 (4): 498-507 Nietzsche, F. (1886) Jenseits von Gut und Böse; transl. Dora Wagner Schwegler, J. et al. (2016) Der Mensch, Anatomie und Physiologie. Thieme: Stuttgart Vogel, H-H (1994) Finding Remedies– a contribution towards understanding Anthroposophical Remedies, an example of WALA remedy compositions. Bad Boll

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iv: Notes from the Brew Room

Green shoots and sauce Ann King Old herbals refer to Vinca minor or Periwinkle as the ‘joy of the ground’. Indeed, this is a fitting groundcover for smaller creatures, one that also delights us at this time of year with bursts of pale blue flowers on fresh green ribbons. Culpeper (1653) refers to Vinca’s allround astringent properties as a great binder; apparently, the leaves should be harvested when the flowers are out, and on a Monday for optimum efficacy. Whilst Vinca minor is not in wide use currently, Hoffman (1996) suggests using it for bleeding gums, mouth ulcers and sore throats. He recommends an infusion of 1tsp of the dried herb three times a day. For our purposes, we consider the herb’s traditional use as an astringent for the mouth together with more current references to a tincture-based remedy for internal use.

With foliar freshness very much in mind this month, we are making use of the renewed abundance in local foraging habitats and enjoying various adaptations of a muchlauded folk recipe called simply ‘Green Sauce’. The combination of spring greens for this recipe are very much a personal choice— so long as they are harvested close by and include Sorrel (Rumex acetosa), where possible. The thick sauce can be served hot or cold and is a perfect antidote to the rich comfort food that we may have enjoyed over the winter months. Searching out and foraging the young leaves on a brisk walk will energise the body. Creating and enjoying the sauce will invigorate the senses— and it tastes delicious. Imagine each mouthful cleansing and nourishing the liver, helping to replace stagnant energy and promote vital flow throughout the organs.

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Fresh, Green and Wild Sauce Ingredients  Two handfuls of washed young leaves; Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) for its wonderfully acidic taste and cleansing action, plus any of the following spring tonic herbs: Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), Hawthorn (Cratageus monogyna), Nettle (Urtica dioica), Wild Garlic (Allium ursinum), Chickweed (Stellaria media).  One peeled white Onion (Allium cepa) for cleansing  A sprig of Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) for her antiviral properties  An optional sprig of Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) to garnish Method 1. Simmer the Onion and Thyme together in 400ml water for 10 minutes 2. Add the leaves to the water, cover and cook until tender 3. Remove the Onion and add 1tbsp Olive oil, 1 tbsp white wine vinegar and season with salt and pepper 4. Beat until creamy and either serve immediately, topped with the chopped Parsley, or refrigerate and use as a cold condiment.

Our current favourite suggestion has to be roasted root vegetables topped with warm Green Sauce. We hope you enjoy your own Green Sauce in your own way.

iv: Notes from the Brew Room

References Culpeper, N. (1653) Culpeper’s Complete Herbal: consisting of A comprehensive description of nearly all herbs with their medicinal properties and directions for compounding the medicines extracted from them. Foulsham & Co: Slough Disclaimer No recipes are intended to replace medical advice and the reader should seek the guidance of their doctor for all health matters.

The profiles and recipes are intended for information purposes only and have not been tested or evaluated. Ann King is not making any claims regarding their efficacy and the reader is responsible for ensuring that any replications or adaptations of the recipes that they produce are safe to use and comply with cosmetic regulations where applicable.

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iv: Flower Power

Karma chameleon Rose Morley Although flower essences can be applied via steams, the bath, and so on, they are easily taken by mouth. Indeed, this is both the most popular and the most immediately effective way to use them; a few drops popped directly onto the tongue and held for a few seconds, with this action repeated until the emotion has subsided. The flower essence is then absorbed into the blood stream via the saliva.

Periwinkle flower essence (Vinca major) is excellent for when we are attempting to forge ahead into a new project or some other aspect of our lives, without stopping to learn from where we have been. Periwinkle helps us to integrate and reflect, in order to gain wisdom and understanding for the next phase of life.

If your perspective is slightly out of balance, you may find yourself not only attempting to manifest something new without having fully integrated the old, but also feeling heavy, weighed by necessity and unable to recognise and fully utilise your past experiences. In short, you might find yourself throwing the baby out with the bath water.

The harmonising qualities of Periwinkle can help you release the past whilst gaining wisdom from your experiences and recovering a lightness of being. If you find yourself numbing out the world, or developing repetitive behaviours in order not to feel, this is the essence to engage with raise your spirits. Periwinkle puts us back in touch with nature and the faery realms, so that we're able to see beyond tangible reality and have more of a sense of spirit and the miraculous. It helps to heal our male energy and to give it a sense of value, in turn helping to heal female energy that has been hurt by male energy.

For this reason, Periwinkle resonates strongly with the experience of puberty, helping to heal when we might be feeling as though we have been stabbed through the heart. Whilst that tumultuous phase is an unavoidable part of growing up, we may find ourselves replaying similar circumstances throughout our adult lives, as we attempt to heal those

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past hurts. At these times, Periwinkle essence can be very helpful.

Through the battlefield of life, we learn to close our hearts in self-protection, or to make our love conditional. We may become deeply disillusioned and develop a hard, distrustful exterior. This essence encourages the heart chakra to open, so that we can revisit the pain of the past and accept its lessons. It helps us regain trust and belief in a greater vision, so that we can grow and take on new learning and create a new, loving way of life.

This flower essence also has particular resonance with the solar plexus and throat chakras. For those who like to use spoken affirmations, this one is apposite: 'I learn from the past, finding the courage to open my heart to both pain and joy, so that I fully engage with life.'

Periwinkle flower essence is nicknamed ‘the Chameleon’ because it resonates deeply with those people who are too sweet, too kind, too flexible, and too eager to please. These folk tend to be naturally sensitive and worry about what others say about them. To try to fit in, they usually hone their ability to be all things to all people. As a result, they may find it hard to stick up for themselves in situations of conflict, or they may allow others to dictate how they respond to situations, often subconsciously. They may crave the company of others or find it hard to be alone with themselves.

Periwinkle encourages us open up and evolve into our authentic selves. It supports us in feeling loved for exactly who we are, helping us to understand that we do not need to hide or, worse, trade pieces of ourselves in exchange for love or attention.

References www.desert-alchemy.com www.pegasusproducts.com www.innerplantwisdon.com www.spiritoftransformation.com

Anastasiia Morozova Daphne Sfondo Trasparente

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v: In Focus

A fresh look at wildflowers Elaine MacGillivray I was an archivist. For almost twenty years I poured over the daily intimacies of the lives of some of Scotland’s greatest thinkers; documenting and describing their personal and business letters, financial records, notebooks, lectures, drawings, paintings, maps, plans, wildflower specimen books and anything else that may have been left behind, and making these valuable and insightful records accessible to the public for research. The great privilege of working so closely with archive collections is that we are repeatedly offered the opportunity to develop knowledge and interest in a person, subject or era that otherwise may never have occurred to us to explore. Through my work, I lived vicariously through the 18th century right up into the present day, meeting along the way diplomats, scientists, artists, poets, architects, geologists, educators, storytellers, tradition bearers and botanists, many of whom were leading intellects and innovators in their fields. These encounters with people from the past have the capacity to inspire actions in the present, which can transform our perspective and understanding of our current world and our place in it.

I have been influenced by so many thinkers and ideas from the past that it’s difficult to cherry-pick a favourite. Some do stand out more than others, however; one of these is the female botanist, Joan Wendoline Clark (1908-1999). Clark grew up in Kincardineshire and Sussex, was fluent in French and German, and was skilled in shorthand. A trained typist, she worked for a time at the Foreign Office in London and at the British Embassy in Paris. In the 1930s, she returned to Scotland with her Scottish husband and together they settled in Lochaber, where she remained until her death. Shortly after this, her daughter, Anna MacLean, kindly gifted Joan’s manuscript collection to the School of Scottish Studies Archives. The collection includes her correspondence and botanical research notes dating from the 1970s right up until 1999, along with three specimen books containing almost 350 pressed wildflowers collected from Onich, Ballachulish, North Uist and Glencoe in around 1976.

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v: In Focus

In 2014, I was tasked with cataloguing the Joan Clark collection. Clark’s wildflower specimen books are made up of three A4 sized scrapbooks made of sugar paper. Turning the pages, I found each contained between one and three pressed wildflower specimens. Bedstraw (Galium spp.), Iris (I. germanica), Seapinks (Armeria spp.), Sundew (Drosera sp.), Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) and so many more are carefully laid out and attached with tiny strips of paper glued at either end. Beside each specimen is the name of the plant, the location it was found, and the date collected; additional notes are recorded in blue or black ink. The addition of this metadata means that the specimen books are not purely aesthetic, but also of scientific value.

Joan Clark’s manuscript collection is testament to her incredible contribution to botanical science. Her meticulous and painstaking research informed Richard Pankhurst and J. M. Mullin’s Flora of the Outer Hebrides (1991), and she collaborated with Ian MacDonald of the Gaelic Book Council to publish Gaelic Names of Plants / Ainmean Gaidhlig Lusan (1999). A member of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, she was mentored by another leading female British botanist, Mary McCallum-Webster (19061985). McCallum-Webster authored the Flora of Moray, Nairn and East Inverness (1978)— the typist for this work was no other than Joan Clark. The two women made significant contributions to the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland’s Atlas of British Flora (1962; 2002). Many have paid tribute to Joan Clark’s calibre as a botanist, not least the renowned and respected botanist A. C. Jermy of the Natural History Museum (Watsonia, 2000).

In a blog post written for the School of Scottish Studies Archives in June 2021, Jenny Sturgeon observes that ‘local names for flora and fauna root us to where we come from and there is a cultural history and identity associated with them’ (Sturgeon, 2021). Growing up on the west coast of Argyll, I was taught the names of the local wildflowers by my mother and grandmothers. I felt a very personal connection to Clark’s wildflower specimen books, as many of the specimens documented were from the area just north of my childhood home. On seeing the Sea-pinks, I was immediately transported back to summer weeks spent with my grandmother when we would clamber over the slate rocks in front of her house on west coast of the Isle of Seil. She would point out to me Sea-pinks, limpets, and fool’s gold (iron pyrite). Hours were lost engrossed in scouring rock pools for anemones as the tide receded. Later in life, during my post-graduate studies in Liverpool, my mother once sent me a Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus)— collected, pressed, and placed between two pieces of tissue paper in a card. On it was a scribbled note: ‘snapdragons are out and so I thought you would like to see one!’

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v: In Focus For me— as, indeed, for many —flora, fauna and the natural world offer up a very tangible connection to people, place and time. I am not referring here to clock-time, the time that so often punctuates our daily lives and lives inside our thinking brains. I am referring to the time that is waymarked by changes in the natural world. Time determined by the age of the rocks; by the quality of the light and the character of the weather at different times of year; by the abundance and depth of colour in the leaves; by the lustre of the Brambles; by the direction of flight of a skein of geese overhead. Time which is not dictated by our hectic work schedules, family, childcare, pet-care, healthcare, our volunteer and other daily commitments. Time which is outside of ourselves, but, when we pay it more heed, does something to help us reconnect with and acknowledge our natural roots in the world. A more organic time— a time which is signposted by the flowering of the Snapdragons.

With this in mind, and inspired by Joan Clark, on a bright June day in 2021, I set out to lose some hours in nature, collecting some of my own herbarium specimens. I packed up my rucksack with the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland’s Guide to Collecting and Pressing Specimens, my phone (for the camera), a pair of scissors, a pack of coffee filters (in place of parchment paper), and Delia Smith’s Complete Illustrated Cookbook, which is the weightiest book in my library and now my makeshift flower press. Fully prepared (I felt), I headed out to a local Perthshire woodland.

The woodland is formed of a gully straddling a small burn. The steep banks either side of the burn are held up by the roots of Lime (Tilia x europaea) and Alder (Alnus glutinosa) trees, their bases shrouded in Ferns (Polypodiophyta spp.) and Moss (Bryophyta spp.). Further out from the banks of the burn are mature Oak (Quercus robur) and Beech (Fagus spp.) stems. Under the dappled light of the canopy can be seen a sparse covering of woody shrubs such as Hazel (Corylus spp.), Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), Holly (Ilex spp.) and Elder (Sambucus nigra), as well as some saplings from parent trees. The path through the woodland runs between two single-track country roads which are flanked by agricultural fields, in some of which are grown Spring Barley (Hordeum vulgare) and Broad Beans (Vicia faba), and in others are housed pigs and cows.

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v: In Focus With hawk-eyes, I made my way slowly up the incline path. When I found a suitable specimen, I would first take a photograph. I was careful to only cut a flower where there was plentiful supply, snipping off just one flower head for each specimen. I discovered that it is actually quite difficult to get a threedimensional flower to lie flat within a coffee filter without losing the structural integrity of the flower itself. Once I had overcome this technical challenge, I carefully slid the first of the occupied coffee filters between illustrations of Delia’s scones and Victoria sponges. In this way I proceeded until I had collected around ten specimens, which I felt was sufficient for a first outing. Having allowed myself some mistakes and learning in the process, I resolved to improve my technique next time.

On returning home, I briefly retrieved my specimens from Delia’s safe custody (they would remain with her for a further six weeks, to become fully pressed) and began my attempt to identify each. Some of them I knew well, like Common Broom (Cytisus scoparius), Vetches (Vicia sativa), Campion (Silene spp.) and Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta); others left me scratching my head. Attempting to identify my specimens, I found myself poring over Francis Buchanan White’s Flora of Perthshire (1898), the Perthshire Society for Natural Science’s Checklist of the Plants of Perthshire (1992), and an old copy of the Readers’ Digest Guide to Wildflowers of Britain (1996). I compared my specimens to photographs that I had of Joan Clark’s specimen books, and to images and descriptions on the webpages of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Wildflower Finder, and the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. The result of all this endeavour is that some of my metadata remains lacking until such a time as I can identify and name the plant— or until my newly acquired membership of the botany section of the Perthshire Society for Natural Science pays dividends!

The creative process of collecting, pressing, identifying, and documenting was completely absorbing, and— much like hunting for sea anemones —I lost many more hours to it than I had planned to. But the benefits outweighed my inability to stick to a clock-time plan. I learned to pay greater attention to my environment, gained a deeper understanding of my locality, and through the documenting process consolidated knowledge around the interdependence of people and plants. In trying to see the world further afield. I am growing a wider variety of flowers (for the bees) and vegetables (for ourselves). I

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v: In Focus through the posthumous botanical wisdom of Joan Clark, the present-day natural world has opened up to me in a way I might never have experienced. I now prioritise time spent outdoors in the garden and further afield. I am growing a wider variety of flowers (for the bees) and vegetables (for ourselves). I quietly pay attention to the daily, monthly, seasonal, and yearly changes. I observe and monitor all our visitors— robins, sparrows, swifts, blackbirds, great tits, mistle thrushes, toads and even the snails and slugs (despite the damage they do to my Brassicas). Last autumn, I gave over four glorious days to foraging for Raspberries and Brambles (Rubus spp.), which were particularly lustrous this year. But the most significant impact for me has been my rediscovery of a more organic sense of time, and the ability of nature to shift one’s perspective about one’s place in the world. Spending time outdoors, absorbed in a creative activity centred on learning about or caring for that environment— and, most often, being completely alone while doing it —is an essential component of how I manage my mental health and wellbeing. The accumulated anxiety arising from the minutiae of daily life fades when seeking out the details in the natural world, and in the awe inspired by contemplating a century-old tree.

I have such great respect for the knowledge, work, tenacity, dedication, and patience that Joan Clark and others must have brought to their botanical studies. I wonder what she would have made of my amateur attempts to emulate her. I hope that she would be pleased that her legacy has inspired, and is able to continue to inspire, a newfound passion to know, understand and protect plants and their environment. And, as spring begins to bloom, I look forward to another year’s exploration of the natural world around me.

Images Dog’s Mercury, The Joan Clark Collection, School of Scottish Studies Archives Bitter Vetch, The Joan Clark Collection, School of Scottish Studies Archives Water Speedwell, The Joan Clark Collection, School of Scottish Studies Archives Goat St John’s Wort, The Joan Clark Collection, School of Scottish Studies Archives Common Broom, Elaine MacGillivray Common Sorrel, Elaine MacGillivray Bluebell, Harebell, Elaine MacGillivray Unknown wildflower, Elaine MacGillivray Images are copyright; please do not reproduce.

References Jermy, A.C., (2000) ‘Obituary of Joan Wendoline Clark (1908-1999)’ in Watsonia, 23: 359-372.

Murray, C.W. (2000) ‘In Memorium – Joan W Clark (Rust) 1908-1999; in BSBI Scottish Newsletter, 22: 12-13 Sturgeon, J. (2021) ‘SSSA in 70 Objects: Plants used in Traditional Shetland Medicine.’ Blog at libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/sssa

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v: Sage Advice

After spending a few years developing and improving the planting in my garden, I was certainly noticing an increase in the quantity and variety of visiting birds and insects, ichneumons and all. I couldn’t claim all the credit, however, as some of the influx was due to something that was happening beyond my plot…

Take a walk on the wild side Callum Halstead Last year, I discovered that my Edinburgh garden was home to an ichneumon (Ichneumonidae). While this does sound like a discovery I may have made while playing Pokémon GO™, my ichneumon was a real creature and one that belongs to a large but little-known family of parasitoid insects, common throughout the British Isles.

Although I was unable to identify the exact species— there are just so many of them —I knew that my ichneumon was preying on other troublesome wee beasties hiding in the undergrowth, making it both a welcome visitor and exactly the sort of insect that I wanted to be encouraging into my garden.

My discovery was one of a succession that I made in my small suburban back garden that spring, having decided to know more about its biodiversity and arming myself with a helpful mobile identification app.

Any garden has the potential to provide a niche and refuge for local wildlife. Naturally, the wider the range of habitats you can create, the greater the diversity of life colonising your garden will likely be. But even if, like mine, your garden is very small, so long as what it contains is at least a bit more environmentally useful than a hot tub and some fake grass, you will surely be providing shelter and possibly a little sustenance for something out there.

My house at the time was bordered on three sides by scruffy patches of grass that the council would, in normal times, scalp on a semi-regular basis. The job would then be finished off, not with a nice sharp pair of edging shears, but with weedkiller— leaving a blitzed, yellowing halo around the perimeter of each patch. (Thankfully, the community organisation Pesticide Free Balerno have helped put an end to this destructive and unnecessary practice in the area). Then, during the pandemic— and particularly during the various periods of lockdown as limits were imposed on working hours and people’s ability to work in groups —councils across the country scaled back their grass cutting operations. The result was that nature returned to the suburban landscape. As these once shabby patches of ground were freed from their usual cycle of suppression, the plant communities they contained burst into life— and it was eye-opening just how species-rich and diverse they were, to see that so many different plants could hang on in a place like this, despite never normally being allowed to grow to their full height, or above even five centimetres for that matter.

Firstly, there were the grasses themselves.

Without going through with a fine-toothed comb, I was still able to count at least five species (and there were probably more that I missed). The standout plant among them was Yorkshire Fog Grass (Holcus lanatus). I’ve known of this plant for years— mostly as a weed —and had never before paused to appreciate its beauty. Yorkshire Fog is normally considered a bit coarse for the garden, something of an unwelcome intruder in an otherwise fine lawn. There is good reason for this, as it looks absolutely terrible 27

v: Sage Advice when it’s mown. This had certainly been the case in those patches surrounding my house.

However, allowed to grow freely and undisturbed, this oft-maligned plant was afforded a rare opportunity to show off. In the early morning, it added a cool and calming colour to the meadow— its strappy, glaucous leaves edged with dew. Later on, as the day drew to its close, the soft, swaying flower heads glowed a wonderful mauvish-pink in the golden evening light.

Among the grasses, numerous wildflowers also seized their opportunity to flourish. While the grass was still short, a mass of Daisies (Bellis perennis) blanketed the area like a fresh covering of snow. These were followed by a crop of Dandelions (Taraxacum agg.) the likes of which I had never before seen. Forget-menots (Myosotis arvensis) and Sweet Violets (Viola odorata) grew in the dappled shade of two young Sycamores (Acer pseudoplatanus) and, in the sunnier spots, the grasses were punctuated by the strange bobbly flowers of Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata) and the short purple spires of Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris). Elsewhere, Creeping Buttercups (Ranunculus repens), White Clover (Trifolium repens) and Tufted Vetch (Vicia cracca) wound themselves around everything wherever they had gained a foothold. Towering up above all else were the lacy and sculptural umbellifers, Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) and Common Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium). This list is not at all extensive.

Not bad for a few patches of scruffy grass.

The arrival of wildlife was almost instantaneous. Looking across these newly formed little meadows on a sunny day, the air above was filled with life; the tiny silvery wings of insects glinting in the sunshine. The insects, in turn, attracted the birds— particularly the characterful and industrious little robins, blue tits and dunnocks —all of which prey on invertebrates. Prior to this, the area had been an almost exclusive stomping ground for the local jackdaws and rooks— also welcome, but not as endearing, and not a little bird in sight.

When lockdown ended, the lawnmowers returned, and the little meadows regained 28

their former shabby and slightly threadbare appearances. The little birds disappeared, and I’d imagine many of the insects did too.

Although the meadows weren’t around for very long, in that short amount of time I fell in love with them, and I missed them when they were gone. I don’t believe that I was alone in enjoying this more relaxed approach to controlling green space in the urban environment. There’s certainly a case for altering how we treat and maintain our local surroundings in order to allow wildlife back in.

There are numerous benefits that could arise from nurturing proper wildflower meadows in the negative spaces of our housing estates and other urban areas. Just leaving the grass to grow had a drastic effect, but it wouldn’t take much effort to boost the biodiversity of these spaces even further. Seeding the areas with Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor)— a semi-parasitic plant that attaches itself to the roots of grasses, slowing their growth —would allow other wildflowers the chance to gain a foothold, without being outcompeted.

Councils would then only have to visit these areas to cut the grass once a year, in July, after the Yellow Rattle had seeded itself for the following year. The management of the space might need to be altered slightly, depending how fertile the soil is, but in general it would save on the cost of labour, as well as fuel. In the meantime, both wildlife and residents could benefit from an increase in habitat and biodiversity.

While our local councils may have returned to their old practices, I’m sure there is scope for residents to influence how their local green spaces are managed. If you have a local space in mind that you think could benefit from a bit of micro-rewilding, I encourage you to write to your council to raise the issue. Share your ideas and see what they have to say. If there’s a chance that your idea would save them money, I can’t see them not at least considering it. If the council aren’t interested, you could always investigate taking over the management of the area as a local community, which is something that is becoming increasingly common and is a

v: Sage Advice lovely way of re-engaging residents with their local environment.

Getting back to gardens and gardening, as the growing season gets under way, I urge you to consider how you might leave or even create space for nature in your garden this year. There are a great many ways this can be achieved. If you have a lawn, I recommend allowing all or part of it to grow tall for a season, just to see what it does when left to its own devices. If access is an issue, you can always mow a strip through the middle to maintain a clear pathway. The contrast between tightly clipped lawn and long grass can be an attractive design feature in itself. If you decide that you enjoy the aesthetic and would like a more in-depth look at creating and managing a wildflower meadow in your garden, you can look to Christopher Lloyd’s excellent book Meadows (2004) for guidance.

Within its pages you’ll find the same level of distilled wisdom that you find in all his books, covering the establishment of wildflower meadows, how to improve them, and how to increase the number of species that they contain.

Alternatively, if you happened to lose your fence in one of this winter’s storms and haven’t yet got around to re-erecting it, ask your neighbour how they would feel about a native hedge instead, using species such as Field Maple (Acer campestre), Guelder Rose (Vibiurnum opulus), Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), Blackthorn (Prunus nigra) and Dog Rose (Rosa canina). As well as furnishing your garden with flowers and attractive fruits, and providing some beautiful autumn colour, a hedge containing a mixture of plant species such as these will attract a diverse range of wildlife into the garden all year round. If your neighbour isn’t keen, then training plants against the walls of your house can create a similar type of habitat. One of my favourite plants to use in this situation is Firethorn (Pyracantha sp.) and its high value to wildlife really makes it the perfect choice. In early summer, its frothy white flowers will be awash with pollinating insects and, later in the season, these will be followed by a glut of red,

orange, or yellow berries depending on the variety. These are an abundant source of food for birds. Trained plants can also often provide the birds with useful nesting sites and, as an added bonus, growing Pyracantha on your walls could probably act as a fairly good deterrent for would-be burglars, as it is one of the spiniest plants around.

Your transition towards a more biodiverse garden needn’t necessarily incorporate a major new project, however. Slight changes to the way you look after your garden can have a sizeable impact. I completely understand how tempting it can be to tidy up, but a little bit of disorder in the garden can be beneficial.

Resist the urge to immediately remove everything that has died back for the season.

Dead plants can still hold onto a lot of seeds, making them a valuable food source for birds.

Hollow stems can also provide insects with a sheltered spot in which they can overwinter. If you happen to lose a tree in a storm or just remove some branches from one, instead of putting the lot through a shredder, keep some short logs aside and pile them together in a cool and damp part of the garden. Wood piles left to slowly decay can provide a haven for invertebrates. Likewise, piles of small branches and fallen leaves left in a sheltered position can provide hedgehogs with somewhere to hibernate through the winter months.

The best thing about gardening in this way is, of course, being able to sit back and watch the local wildlife benefit from the environment you have created. If you do discover something in your garden that you’ve never seen before— and I hope you will —try using an app like iNaturalist. It works for any living organism— be it insect, bird, plant or otherwise. It’s free to download, and its active community of knowledgeable users will help you determine what it is you’ve found. You’ll be contributing to citizen science projects in the process.

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Anastasiia Morozova Amanita grande

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vi: The Climate Column

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil?

Patrick Dunne Another IPCC Report lands.

But this time, it seems to have generated barely a ripple in the waters of global media.

At more than 3,500 pages no-one, and I mean no-one, can have read it yet— but even news of its launch seems to have been surprisingly subdued; its release barely topped the ten most-read environmental articles in the Guardian online. I know almost nothing about it— and I spent the best part of two years organising mass readings of its prequels, so I am more invested in IPCC Reports than most.

I‘m sure it will make for grim reading: evidencing that the state of the climate is worse than predicted, listing even more startling stats and shorter timescales, confirming more extreme changes. I will read and write more on the Report in the next edition of HN (I'm afraid the two days between the launch and this publication’s deadline was too high a mountain for me).

Meanwhile, it‘s the silence that is deafening.

It is not the biggest news story at the moment, and understandably so. As I type, there is war.

People who live like us, in cities that look like ours, are experiencing the violence and horror that we collectively came to believe was impossible in mainland Europe. But Vladimir Putin clearly had other ideas: shells fall; military convoys advance; rumours and misinformation swirl; and men, women, and children die in gunfire and explosions.

It is in bad taste to draw links between this catastrophe and the climate emergency, but that hasn't stopped the fossil fuel industry.

Never, as they say, let a crisis go to waste. Why not exploit a conflict to develop your own fossil fuel resources? Why not promote exploration here as a vast improvement on exploration over there? Why not conveniently ignore the well-established fact that we can't

continue to explore or exploit fossil fuels anywhere?

The military industrial complex is a huge source of emissions, and it’s one that is largely left out of emission reduction models. No one has even begun to approach how one might decouple the US military (the world‘s largest military force, by some distance) from oil.

Publicly at least, no military-based economy has yet been prepared to discuss how emissions reduction might impact the vast economic forces that surround warfare, and 'combat readiness'. Imagine right-wing attacks on wind-powered tanks and vegan warplanes! It would be terrible, absurd, and might even make Donald Trump's tilting at windfarms seem sound and reasonable...

One final note on war and climate brings us a little closer to home. It’s something that came to my attention this week via Scotland's Third Force News, the magazine of the third sector.

They carried an article (Armour, 2022) highlighting the disturbing link between Keep Scotland Beautiful and BAE Systems, who are profiting from the war in Yemen by supplying materials and even training to that 'campaign'. Keep Scotland Beautiful has received £100,000 funding from BAE to help clean up the Clyde in Glasgow. Incredibly, in response to criticism, Keep Scotland Beautiful have praised BAE Systems‘ commitment to 'sustainability'. This is defending the indefensible. Keep Scotland Beautiful are also a grant-giving body, so we will be able to observe in real time how dirty money gets washed green, as small local organisations cheerfully apply for grants to improve their communities with money linked to the obliteration of similar communities elsewhere.

I hope I’ll be able to report the end of this relationship in a future edition of Herbology News.

In the meantime, we must all keep our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds open and alert in these troubled and difficult times.

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References Armour, R. (2022) ‘Scots charity accused of being unethical after accepting weapon company cash’, in TFN (Third Force News), February 14th.

Available online: https://tfn.scot/news/scots-charity-accusedof-being-unethical-after-accepting-weaponcompany-cash You can read more about the latest IPCC Report online here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree /2022/feb/28/ipcc-climate-report-grim-hope To find out more about the oil industry’s involvement in profiting from war, I recommend the excellent Judd Legum whose journalism is available here: https://popular.info/p/fossil-fuel-companiesare-exploiting?s=r

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vi: The Chemistry Column

Fresh fingertips Claire Gormley If you love to cook, you’re probably familiar with the dreaded ‘Garlic fingers’— that smell that can linger long after you’ve prepared your food, eaten and cleaned-up. In my house I'm strictly on dishwasher duty, so I was sceptical when my partner insisted that rubbing your fingers with stainless steel after handling Garlic (Allium sativum) removes the odours. It seemed too much like an old wives’ tale, and the ‘steel soap’ products on the market just made me chuckle (particularly the Garlic-shaped one!).

Unsurprisingly, the removal of Garlic odours from fingers using stainless steel has not been at the top of researchers’ lists of most important topics to study— studies tend to focus rather on Garlic’s anti-bacterial properties and its potential as a therapeutic — so I only found reports such as those in NPR and Scientific American, detailing at-home experiments, with variable results (Leontiev et al, 2018; Li et al, 2015).

I was ready to stop my investigation when I came across a short (2019) blog written by Dr. Anne Marie Helmenstine —a former college professor now working as a science writer and consultant— describing how the sulfur compounds in Garlic and Onions form metallic bonds with the various metals in stainless steel.

The science goes like this: When we slice up Garlic or Onions a volatile gas, propanethial S-oxide, is released into the air around us.

Upon contact with water, this gas reacts and forms sulfuric acid— that’s the compound that makes our eyes water and sting (Helmenstine, 2019). The sulfur contained in both of these elements is relatively electronegative, meaning it has a strong attraction to electrons.

Due to sulfur’s attraction for electrons, it will form bonds with many other elements in order to “share” their electrons— or in the case of ionic bonds with metal elements, take the metal’s electrons completely —to become more stable.

The mechanism by which sulfur compounds bind to metals is quite complex and varies depending on the type of metal present. In the case of sulfur compounds binding to steel, there are multiple metals to consider. It is thought, however, that as we rub our Garlic-y fingers against a piece of stainless steel the odour-causing sulfuric compounds on our fingers bind with the metal atoms in the stainless steel, thus removing the odour from our hands.

However, the reaction takes time to complete, and will be dependent on how many sulfuric compounds are on one’s fingers— which may be why so many kitchen scientists still smell Garlic on their fingers after trying this trick…

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References Hemelstine, A.M. (2019) ‘How Stainless Steel Removes Odors’, blog post on www.thought.com, accessed 08.03.22 Leontiev, R.; Hohaus, N.; Jacob, C.; Gruhlke, M. C. H. and Slusarenko, A. J. (2018) ‘A Comparison of the Antibacterial and Antifungal Activities of Thiosulfinate Analogues of Allicin’, in Scientific Reports (8): 6763 Li, G.; Ma, X.; Deng, L.; Zhao, X.; Wei, Z.; Gao, Z.; Jia, J.; Xu, J. and Sun, C. (2015) ‘Fresh Garlic Extract Enhances the Antimicrobial Activities of Antibiotics on Resistant Strains in Vitro’, in Jundishapur Journal of Microbiology, 8 (5). e14814.

NPR: www.npr.org Scientific American: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/foodmatters/can-steel-stop-Garlic-8217-s-stink/ Those wishing to try this at home can find the Garlic-shaped steel soap here (other shapes and retailers are available): https://www.selfridges.com/GB/en/cat/alessisavon-du-chef-odour-remover-soap

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Anastasiia Morozova Red Onion

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vii: Foraging through Folklore

A bad taste in the mouth Ella Leith Being a bit of a foodie, I was excited to research folklore connected to taste, thinking of all the delicious folk remedies I was bound to discover. There are many, of course. I was particularly taken with a Middle Eastern cure for those blighted by the Evil Eye— a bread made with salt, Garlic (Allium sativum), Dill (Anethum graveolens), Cumin (Cuminum cyminum) and Rue (Ruta graveolens) (Rolleston, 1943:293). But, alas, there are just as many— if not more —folk remedies that are far less palatable and all the more intriguing for that. Take a cure for diphtheria, involving: gargling the throat with horse dung beaten up with vinegar, [and] swabbing the mouth with fluid obtained from crushing three male crabs (ibid:292).

In a Moravian cure for oral thrush, ‘the mother wipes out the child's mouth with her genital mucus, uttering the words “Wherewith I bear thee, therewith I heal thee”’ (ibid). A similarly afflicted child in West German Bohemia would have their mouth scrubbed ‘with a cloth soaked in its urine’ (ibid:301). Thankfully, the child would then be given honey to take the taste away.

By now, I’ve rather lost my appetite. I can’t help but wonder whether the more nauseating oral remedies were intended to induce vomiting and so expel illness from the 36

body. Certainly, medical traditions across the world have, at different times, considered purging, blood-letting and sweating to be effective cures. There has also been a longstanding belief in the transference of illness to someone or something else. The process could be as simple as the patient ‘spitting on the under side of a stone and then replacing it’, effectively imprisoning their malady (Rolleston, 1943:354).

Other transferrals, however, required a specific occasion: a Kentish cure for warts demanded the sufferer wet their forefinger with saliva and rub the wart three times ‘in the same direction as a passing funeral, saying each time, “My wart goes with you”’ (Selare, 1939:353). In many more such cures, animals were the preferred vessel. It was believed whooping cough could be transferred to a dog by ‘taking a hair from the patient's neck, putting it between slices of bread and butter or on a piece of meat and giving it to the animal to eat’ (Rolleston, 1943:303), while a Shropshire cure for the same malady entailed ‘holding a frog or toad for a few minutes in the child's mouth’, by which means ‘a cure would follow’ (ibid:304). Frogs do not seem to get an easy time of it; in Kent, toothache was thought to ‘be cured by spitting into a frog's mouth and bidding it make off with the pain’ (Selare, 1939:354).

vii: Foraging through Folklore The vast majority of these exorcising remedies centre around the patient’s mouth. This isn’t that surprising. As the orifice through which breath and sustenance pass, there is something magical about the mouth. The association of breath with life is wellestablished (see Genesis 2:7). Although breath alone does appear in some folk remedies— as in a Devonshire cure for infant oral thrush, where the father blows three times into the baby’s mouth —'this method is admittedly not infallible’ (Rolleston, 1943:302). Both breath and saliva were believed to have the ‘power to create and transfer life’ (Selare, 1939:366), and the combination seems to have been seen as more robust. However, saliva alone had its powers. Selare (ibid:359), notes ‘curative and medicinal properties’, and writes about ‘the universal belief in the magical properties’ of saliva as representative of the human being’s ‘life force’— ‘closely connected with his blood and the whole of his person’ (ibid:366). There are many familiar customs that testify to this: To express uncommon goodwill, as in making up a quarrel or settling an unusually protracted piece of bargaining the parties would spit each into his own palm and bring them together with a hearty smack.

(Selare, 1939:363) Children from the North East of England had a custom of ‘spitting their faith’ (i.e. spitting into the air three times) ‘when required to make asservations in matters which they think of consequence’, and miners from the same region would ‘spit upon a stone together ... in order to cement their confederacy’, leading to the saying that, when persons share the same sentiment, ‘they spit upon the same stone’ (ibid:363). Selare (1939:350) believes these to be the remnants of ‘blood brotherhood customs’ with saliva functioning as an easy-toaccess stand-in for blood— ‘the magical properties of blood and saliva were regarded as interchangeable‘.

One Cornish healer from the early nineteenth century ‘made a good income by charming warts... [and] cataracts’ using the following method:

He used to spit three times and breathe three times on the part affected, muttering ‘In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost I bid thee begone’ (Courtney, 1887:199).

Spittle combined with an invocation of religion appears frequently: drawing a cross in spittle was thought to wake a ‘sleeping’ limb; doing the same three times on one’s left boot while reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards would cure hiccups (ibid:202). In Ireland, ‘fasting spittle’— that is, spit from the mouth of someone who has not yet eaten —was ‘considered of great efficacy for sore eyes, especially if used mixed with clay taken from a holy well’ (Selare, 1939:350), and using spit to heal blindness appears both in the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (ibid:349) and the Bible (John 9:1-12).

In addition to its miraculous healing power, spit was also believed to grant wishes and bring good luck. In parts of Lincolnshire, rather than being a punishment, coal in a Christmas stocking would be considered lucky and spat on before being burnt— ‘wish while it burns and you will get your wish’ (Rudkin, 1933:198). Cambridgeshire lore instructs you to: spit on a horseshoe, boot tip, or any bit of iron ... Then shut your eyes and pitch it away in the air, so that you do not know where it has gone. If you happen to find the iron again, you must repeat the ritual (Burn, 1914:365).

Spitting on your watch then looking at the moon will bring you ‘good luck all the days of your life’ (ibid), and in many places it was considered lucky to spit on a new-born baby (Haddon, 1893:361) and on money (Newman and Wilson, 1953:298). There are particular locations which should be spat on for luck, such as the Heart of Midlothian mosaic outside St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh (Mclean, 2020), and a stone near Wakefield ‘on which was cut a St. Andrews Cross’ which ‘on Sunday mornings ... was literally drenched with saliva’ (Selare, 1939:359). Failure to carry out this ritual was believed to bring bad luck (ibid.). Spitting can also avert bad luck— by 37

vii: Foraging through Folklore neutralising an action like walking under a ladder, for example. It may also provide protection against supernatural agents. In parts of Ireland, ‘fairies are hunted from cattle and horses by spitting’ (Westropp, 1922:394) and spitting on the ground in a circle around a new-born baby when it is first taken outside deters fairies— ‘an interesting but disagreeable custom’, as Haddon puts it (1893:358).

It is strange, perhaps, that an act so strongly linked to healing, luck and protection would also be considered disagreeable— and have the potential to be deeply insulting. In part, this must be due to the expulsive function of spitting, clearing the mouth of a bad taste or unpleasant mucus. Spitting at another person is considered taboo almost universally, perhaps representing ‘a “symbolic regurgitation” or an act of contamination’ (Pillappa, 2012:116). Yet its function as an insult may also be the very reason it is the goto protection against the Evil Eye. Individuals may be born with the Evil Eye— a nefarious influence that causes destruction, illness or even death —and can afflict those they look at, but equally common is someone unintentionally casting the Evil Eye by being careless with praise. This may draw unwanted supernatural attention. In one Irish example, an old woman merely told a passing girl who was carrying something heavy that ‘‘twas a wonder she could carry such a load, and the girl on her return home was seized with severe pains and died soon afterwards’ (Westropp, 1922:393). To mitigate against this, praise (“What a sweet puppy—“) should either be accompanied by a blessing (“—God bless it!”), a disparagement (“—such as it is!”), or by spitting as a ritualised signal of contempt (ibid.).

But if the idea of spitting leaves a bad taste in your mouth, there’s always that delicious bread I mentioned earlier.

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References Burn, R. (1914) ‘Folklore from Newmarket, Cambridgeshire’ in Folklore, 25(3):363-366 Courtney, M.A. (1887) ‘Cornish Folk-Lore’ in The Folk-Lore Journal, 5(1):177-220 Haddon, A.C. (1893) ‘A Batch of Irish FolkLore’ in Folklore, 4(3):349-364 Mclean, I. (2020) ‘Why do Edinburgh locals spit on the Heart of Midlothian?’ in The Edinburgh Evening News, 24th April, edinburghnews.scotsman.com/heritage-andretro [accessed 23/02/22] Newman, L.F., and E. M. Wilson (1953) ‘FolkLore Survivals in the Southern Lake Counties and in Essex: A Comparison and Contrast’ in Folklore, 64(1):286-299 Pillappa, P. (2012) Civic Sense. Excel Books: New Delhi Rolleston, J. D. (1943) ‘The Folklore of Children's Diseases’ in Folklore, 54(2):287-307 Rudkin, E. H. (1933) ‘Lincolnshire Folklore’ in Folklore, 44(2):189-214 Selare, R. (1939) ‘A Collection of Saliva Superstitions’ in Folklore, 50(4):349-366 Westropp, T.J. (1922) ‘A Study of the Folklore on the Coasts of Connacht, Ireland’ in Folklore, 33(4):389-397

vii: Botanica Fabula

Evergreen Periwinkle: a fairy story Amanda Edmiston Periwinkles (Vinca minor and major) have a creeping habit. They crept into a Swiss story I'd been given to share in The Very Curious Herbal podcast recently, making a subtle, unexpected appearance in a story which opened with a Larch tree (Larix decidua). As I was adapting some of the details, omitting as mindfully as I could those elements we may no longer want to reinforce, as the story left my lips, as I told, I couldn't help thinking how interesting it was that the story had been told to me just when I was looking for a Periwinkle story to share with you.

The tale was brought to me by a lovely Swiss woman, Virginia, who came to one of my workshops a few years ago. Virginia is an activist and storyteller who I'd got in touch with when I was researching Larch. The Larch is a rather magical, phoenix-like tree, which I often use subtly, as a presence or a flower remedy to enhance creative confidence. It’s not native to Scotland, so here its folklore is a bit thin on the ground, whereas in its native Switzerland it occupies a rich and valuable place in legend.

I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised at Periwinkle's appearance in the story. Again, it's a plant that features in Swiss folklore— used in decorative bunches to dispel evil spirits and bring good luck —which, in many ways, is the role of the child in the story I'm about to share.

The story begins with a fairy woman who lives deep within the roots of a Larch tree, a transitional tree with the power to renew itself every year. The fairy, like the tree, seemed to regain her strength every Spring, even though she was immortal, like the evergreen Periwinkle creeping around the edges of the forest floor where the tree grew.

This fairy loved the beautiful mountains, the blue skies, the fresh air and the flourishing, verdant land around her, but she longed for company and would hide on the edges of the village, watching the people, listening to the children play and wishing she had a child of her own.

Although she was beautiful, there was something about her that stirred up mistrust in the villagers.

‘Too different’, they thought. There was something unexpected, something a little unusual that set her apart, and intolerant voices sent her away. She took, instead, to sitting and watching from her Larch tree home, from a distance— sad and even lonelier now, but unable to leave as she had nowhere else to go.

Every day, there passed a young man who made a living harvesting from the forest; cutting the fast-growing Birch for firewood, watching to see which trees he could take for timber; always ensuring, as good woodsfolk always have, that he left the trees he knew needed to grow.

The fairy did not realise it, but the young man was a little in love with her and was stricken by the 39 thought she might be sad and lonely. He had noticed her tears when ignorant folk had mocked her and sent her away and, eventually, he found the courage to speak to her and ask how she was.

The two got chatting and spent many hours in the woods, sharing a passion for plants, exchanging their views and knowledge of the way things grew, sitting watching the sun set as day closed and,

vii: Botanica Fabula

The fairy did not realise it, but the young man was a little in love with her and was stricken by the thought she might be sad and lonely. He had noticed her tears when ignorant folk had mocked her and sent her away and, eventually, he found the courage to speak to her and ask how she was. The two got chatting and spent many hours in the woods, sharing a passion for plants, exchanging their views and knowledge of the way things grew, sitting watching the sun set as day closed and, in time, whispering words of love.

A year went by and the woodsman, sipping a cup of Larch bark tea, found the courage to ask the fairy to marry him. Raising her own cup to her lips she promised she would, on one condition— that he never cursed her for being a fairy. Her husband-to-be smiled and vowed he would not.

Within the year the couple had welcomed a baby, a child with bright blue eyes— the colour of Vinca —who smiled with happiness and completed their world. They named the child Periwinkle and as long as their mother was near, they laughed and slept, played and gurgled, with never much more than a restless night’s teething to unsettle the days. And so life went on. The couple were happy and the child grew, always happy, strangely wise, but filling their world with joy.

But the woodsman still went to the market and the voices of those who dislike anything different still rose above the throng. They mocked him and refused to buy his wood, told him his wife should be banished, that he was wrong for marrying her. On and on they went, until one night worried about how they would make ends meet, he lost his temper and called her “an accursed fairy”— the one thing he'd promised never to do...And in that one moment, she was gone. His beautiful wife vanished.

Periwinkle let out a cry— sharp, searing —then paused in the way they would if their mother had entered the room. The woodsman turned, but there was nobody there. He left to search the land around their home. Surely, there would be a sign… But there was none. So, he sat and watched the child fall asleep, seemingly calm, whilst he berated himself for his stupidity, for that rash moment when he'd said something he didn't mean and hurt the person he loved.

Time passed, and every day the woodsman regretted what he'd done. He could not believe that in a moment of worry he'd uttered words he'd repeatedly heard but would never have thought. He felt his mouth had betrayed him and he didn't know what to do.

Unbeknownst to her husband, the fairy returned every day as a breeze, or a bird, and tended the child. Periwinkle knew, and they watched, remaining happy and strong.

Finally, the time came when the woodsman had searched every hollow tree, every covert, every glade for miles. Still finding no sign of his wife, he turned to the child and asked them what he should do. The child told him to stand beside the fairy's old Larch tree home, now at the foot of the cottage, look out over the wood and explain out loud, his remorse and regret, promise again to never mistrust his wife, declare his constant love, then stay still and not turn, whatever might happen.

So he stood, and he watched as the sun set. He explained how wrong he had been. He explained his love and trust. Then he stood and imagined her beside him, watching the rose and gold tones disperse into deep blue as the moon lifted into the sky. He did not shift a fraction, not even when something started to slide round his ankle. He sensed the snake as its cool, desiccate scales wound around his leg, upwards, slithering now around his waist. He did not flinch as the reptilian eyes investigated his. Fearing the creatures bite, he closed his eyes.

Feeling its skin caress his lips, he remained motionless.

Then 40

a moment...

He sensed his wife and returned the kiss and then there she was, in his arms, returned...

And of course, being a fairy story, everyone lived happily ever after.

vii: Botanica Fabula

Then a moment...

He sensed his wife and returned the kiss and then there she was, in his arms, returned...

And of course, being a fairy story, everyone lived happily ever after.

Now, as endings go, that might seem a little trite in troubled times, but I'd like to add that I am very aware that stories are invaluable; they offer a safe place to retreat and shelter the mind for a moment, a place to explore your emotions. They help to ground us, so we can act from a place of calm…So, I think it's important to keep sharing small stories that reflect how we value one another. And, hopefully April will bring peace, calm and tolerance.

Acknowledgement Many thanks to Virginia Bjertnes for sending me the translation of the folktale I’ve adapted to share with you.

Image: Marianne Hughes

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vii: Red Squirrel Press presents...

Lesley Mountain

Periwinkle

creePing evErywhere pReventing miscarrIages Woman’s frIend wiNding blanKet conceaLing evErything.

Vinca major

Lesley Mountain is a previous winner of the Red Squirrel Press James Kirkup competition. She lives in Rowlands Gill in North-east England.

Red Squirrel Press is a self-funded independent press based in Scotland. It was founded in April 2006 by Sheila Wakefield and has published over 200 titles to date. www.redsquirrelpress.com Facebook: redsquirrelpress

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Twitter: @redsquirrelpress

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Anastasiia Morozova Painting the Acorn

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viii: Book Club

Finding the Mother Tree (Simard, S.: Allen Lane, 2021) Reviewer: Ella Leith Suzanne Simard is the world’s leading forest ecologist, famous for her research into the Wood Wide Web— the subterranean network of fungal associates through which trees connect and communicate. I came across her in Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees and was excited to read more about her life and research. Finding the Mother Tree is more about the former than the latter; it’s fundamentally a memoir of a life of research, full of scientific observations and nature writing. The memoir element worked best in the early chapters— we learn along with Simard, standing at her shoulder as she digs ectomycorrhizal root tips out of the humus and begins to realise their significance; we sit with her all night on a mattress on the floor as she studies. We, too, learn how: Colonization of plants with fungi enabled them to acquire sufficient nutrients from the barren, inhospitable rock to gain a toehold and survive on land ... suggesting that co-operation was essential to evolution.

Working in the logging industry, Simard begins to question the received wisdom that trees compete rather than cooperate, and starts to explore how trees of the same and different species interact and share nutrients, water, and information. Learning alongside the young Simard makes the science accessible; as someone who dropped biology as soon as I could, I was relieved to find it all pretty straightforward to follow.

An excellent early chapter gives an account of the Simard family’s logging heritage, providing a usefully stark comparison to the industrial logging world in which Simard later finds herself. We watch her wrestle with her complicity in the Canadian Forest Service’s destructive free-to-grow policy— under which only commercial Pine trees were free to grow, while foresters ‘waged all-out war on native

plants and broadleaf trees’. Simard longs to prove that free-to-grow is not effective, that ‘conifer seedlings needed to connect to the mycorrhizal fungi in soil to survive ... [and] native plants helped them make those connections.’ But, to do this, she must undertake rigorous and replicable field experiments into the effects of spraying swathes of forest with herbicides to ‘bare earth’ it ahead of planting Pine seedlings. It’s deeply frustrating to read— and it’s meant to be. Simard gives us an uncomfortable insight into the central conundrum of her research: to disprove the efficacy of deeply damaging practices, Simard must herself be complicit in the destruction of vast and intricate ecosystems.

‘I’d designed my first experiment!’ she crows, before adding: ‘I loathed its purpose, which I was sure was the opposite of what we should be doing.’ It’s for

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viii: Book Club

the greater good, she tells herself, as without a body of research to establish her credentials, she cannot get funding to ameliorate the situation. Justification after justification— all of which are convincing —but, ultimately, I find myself with Simard’s sister when she surveys the wasteland they’ve created and cuts through the academic gloss: “Isn’t it obvious looking at this mess that it’s godawful wrong?”

Simard’s early research showed that free-togrow, bare earth policies do result in quickergrowing Pine trees, which is what the policy makers wanted. However, quick growing does not equal healthier, and over half of the seedlings succumbed to frost, sunburn, rodents, and nitrogen deficiency. Meanwhile, Pines planted alongside Elders grew more slowly, but were healthier. The take home message here— and, indeed, throughout the book —is to slow down, to let things take the time they take. Experiments on how trees grow and tap into the networks around them take years, even decades to show results. But unfortunately, policymakers think short-term and act quickly, causing damage that takes years to reveal itself— and even longer to fix.

Overall, there was a lot I loved about this book— the run-ins with bears; the rookie mistakes as an early career researcher (“What’s that hissing noise?” she asks, as a thousand dollars’ worth of gas seeps out of the canister she’s holding); the frustrations of being a young woman in the aggressively macho world of forestry; grappling with her shyness and fear of confrontation while the men at her lectures talk over, interrupt and belittle her findings. “You can’t hide if you want change,” says her boyfriend, although he’s not the one with an irate forester yelling in his face. At moments, the writing is magical, like the first time Simard uses a Geiger counter to hear evidence that Birch and Fir are communicating underground: Strings and woodwinds, brass and percussion, exploding as one, flooding my ears, the movement allegro and intense, concordant and magical. I was enraptured, focused, immersed, and the breeze sifting 46

through the crowns of my little birches and firs and cedars seemed to lift me clear up. I was part of something much greater than myself.

Other parts of the memoir, however, I found less compelling. Characters flit in and out without much depth but with superfluous detail. Sometimes I could see the relevance of anecdotes— fractured relationships mirroring the fundamental questions of her research: if connection is so important, why is it so fragile and hard to maintain? —but I wasn’t wholly convinced by the execution. I found myself skimming large passages to get back into the forest; I could have done with more science and less life story, more research and less reminiscence, more trees and fewer people.

But on balance, the book works. It’s sad and celebratory, angry and curious. My main reservation is that it seems to be trying to be two books at once. In the end, it’s not quite emotionally engaging enough for a memoir, and not quite focused enough for a popular science book. The writing sometimes lumbers, and the pacing is slow, making an already rather long book feel longer. I confess I still have the last hundred pages to read— and I’m not rushing to get to them. It’s interesting enough that I want to finish it, but not gripping enough to get excited about. Fundamentally, I’m more excited about the book’s overall message than the book itself. This wisdom applies far beyond the forest: ‘interactions over resources isn’t a winner takes all thing; it’s about give-and-take, building more from a little and finding balance over the long term’.

Finding the Mother Tree has seeded many thoughts, but the book itself could have used just a little pruning.

Anastasiia Morozova Wild Mushroom

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ix: Contributors

Hazel Brady’s background is in IT, but she has always loved plants and since retiring has expanded her knowledge, especially around herbs. She completed the Diploma in Herbology at RBGE under Catherine Conway-Payne. Retirement has also given her the opportunity to develop another of her interests— an artistic practice centred in drawing and painting.

Patrick Dunne is an Edinburgh-based community gardener. Since 2018 he has, with his partner Katie Smith, co-organised an International Fringe event staging readings of the 2018 IPCC 1.5 Degrees Global Warming report, made lots of flat sourdough bread and camped, marched and organised as an occasional environmental activist.

Amanda Edmiston was raised in stories; her mother is a professional storyteller, her dad was a toymaker, her grandfather a sculptor, her gran a repository of traditional remedies and folklore.

After studying law, then herbal medicine, Amanda began to blend facts, folklore, traditional tales, history and herbal remedies into unique works. Based in rural Stirlingshire, you can follow her on Facebook, @HerbalStorytell, and find more of her works at www.botanicafabula.co.uk Claire Gormley is a graduate of Moray House School of Education and teaches biology and chemistry in Edinburgh. She earned an undergraduate degree in Biotechnology from James Madison University in 2017, and a MSc in Science Communication and Public Engagement from the University of Edinburgh in 2019. Claire is passionate about building positive relationships between communities and Science through education and engagement.

Callum Halstead is Senior Gardener at Cambo Gardens. He studied BSc Horticulture with Plantsmanship at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and brings this knowledge to bear both professionally and in his own garden, where he also practices as a keen floral photographer. IG: @callum_halstead

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ix: Contributors

Marianne Hughes began following her interest in complementary medicine after a career in Social Work Education and voluntary work in Fair Trade.

Starting with Reflexology & Reiki, she progressed into Herbal Medicine. The evening classes at the RBGE got her hooked and she completed the Certificate in Herbology and, more recently, the Diploma in Herbology. Her current joy is experimenting with herb-growing in her own garden, in a local park, and alongside other volunteers in the RBGE Physic Garden. marianne@commonfuture.co.uk Ann King has always dabbled in gardening in some shape or form is now a horticultural therapist and graduate of the RBGE Herbology Diploma. She is passionate about facilitating nature re-connection and enabling its therapeutic benefits by creatively adapting knowledge and stories for organised group sessions: either outdoors, incorporating exercise; or sedentary, indoor, experiential workshops. You can follow her on IG: @annlovesherbs or at www.thymefornature.com.

Dr. Ella Leith is an ethnologist and folklorist who studied in Scotland and now lives in Malta. She particularly loves folktales and the storytelling traditions of linguistic and cultural minorities. IG: @leithyface Elaine MacGillivray is a former archivist who spent twenty years working across a range of archive services in Scotland, before deciding to retrain in a vocation more directly related to physical health and well-being. Elaine is inspired by many of the great thinkers she has encountered through her archives work. Her interests include the interconnectedness of people, place, environment, culture, diet, physical movement, health, and wellbeing.

Originally from Argyll, she now lives in Perthshire.

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ix: Contributors

Rose Morley qualified as a Bach Flower Registered Practitioner in February 2017, after studying the system for over two years. It was her longstanding, keen interest in alternative medicine, and her passion for flower remedies in particular, that led Rose to obtain Bach Foundation International Register (BFRP) Practitioner status. rose.morley@hotmail.co.uk

Maddy Mould is an illustrator living in the Scottish Borders. Her work is influenced by the magic and history of the surrounding natural landscape.

IG: @maddymould and maddymould.co.uk

Kyra Pollitt is a graduate of the Diploma in Herbology at the RBGE. When not editing Herbology News, she works as a translator, interpreter, writer and artist. She lives on the Isle of Harris, where she is busily planting and growing a garden. www.actsoftranslation.com and www.wilderorb.com

Dora Wagner is a graduate of the RBGE Diploma in Herbology, and a Didactician in Natural Science. She also works as a Naturopath for Psychotherapy, and as a Horticultural Therapist. She currently lectures in Medical Herbalism at the University of Witten/Herdecke, and is leading a project reconstructing the medicinal herb garden of an Anthroposophic Hospital in Germany. dora.wagner@t-online.de and www.plantadora.de

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xi: Looking Forward

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