In early June

 

Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia). Frome, 3 June 2023.

In early June, the miracles come along so thick and  fast we easily miss them. Here's two. 

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, 

And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. 

(Matthew 3:1-4)

Most likely John the Baptist was living off insects, perhaps the Desert Locust (Schistocerca gregaria). (They are still a popular food, considered halal and kosher in the Middle East; you just need to avoid them if the swarms have been sprayed, or you'll get a nice dose of organophosphates and pyrethroids.)

ipse autem Iohannes habebat vestimentum de pilis camelorum et zonam pelliciam circa lumbos suos esca autem eius erat lucustae et mel silvestre

(Vulgate version of Matthew 3:4)

St Jerome, himself a desert dweller at one time, would have known all about eating locusts. Nevertheless, some time in the Middle Ages the idea arose that "lucustae" actually meant the pods of the carob tree (another useful survival food). Consequently, the name "locust" became attached to other pods and other pod-bearing trees, and that's how the beautiful tree in these photos acquired the name Black Locust (I haven't seen any explanation for what's black about it, though). It's native to two regions in the eastern USA, but is widely planted throughout temperate parts of the whole world, including the British Isles. I must admit I just call it "Robinia" (the Latin name is Robinia pseudoacacia). 

It's a tree with many aspects to it, as you can read on Wikipedia, but I just wanted to record its breathtaking beauty, especially in a good flowering year like 2023: the extended wet and gloomy spring must have helped. (In 2022, by contrast, we were in full-on drought conditions by June and the trees produced very few flowers).

Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia). Frome, 3 June 2023.

Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia). Frome, 7 June 2023.

Ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare). Chippenham, 2 June 2023.

My second miracle is even more commonplace: Ox-eye Daisies on a bank. 

If you were a newcomer to this uplifting sight, I think you'd be surprised that the rest of us make so little of it. 

Leucanthemum vulgare is native throughout the British Isles, also most of Europe including nearly all of Sweden, where it is called Prästkrage ("priest's collar", referring to the white ruff once worn by clerics). You would think that so showy and common a plant might have left more of a mark on our older literature, but so far I'm having trouble locating any references. Chaucer might have been referring to them -- but no, his daisies are "whyte and rede", so he must mean Bellis perennis, the lawn daisy. There is never any red in the rays of an ox-eye daisy. 

"Day's eye" refers to the habit of Bellis perennis (and many other Asteraceae species) of opening their flowers only during the day and closing them at night. 

However Ox-eye Daisies don't do this, and hence one of their other vernacular names is Moon Daisy. A field of them, fully open in the dusk and gazing at the moon, is one of the sights of our "white nights". 

One problem with looking for traces in older literature is that there is no settled name. John Gerard (1597) gives a good description, in Ch 203, "Of the great Daisy, or Maudlin-Wort". He supplies the Latin name Consolida media vulnerariorum. (Another of his plants,  the "White Oxe-eie", is described as looking similar but with compound leaves. -- That must be why, by the 18th century, the term "Ox-eye Daisy" had become established.) 

I haven't found any Middle English references to "Maudlin-wort". "Marguerite" or similar is mentioned in Lydgate, supposed to mean Leucanthemum vulgare. Likewise Middle English herbal references to "Whit bothen" or "Whit bothel"; "boþen" is an Anglo-Saxon herbal word, e.g. for Rosemary and similar herbs. "Orval" (usually meaning Orpine) seems to have also been applied to L. vulgare, at least once. I have only moderate confidence in these identifications.

Generally (based mostly on the University of Michigan's entry for "daies-ie")  you can derive a Latin herbalist scheme in which Consolida minor meant the "little daisy" (Bellis perennis), Consolida media or mediana meant the "great daisy" (Leucanthemum vulgare), while Consolida maior meant comfrey (Symphytum spp). But it's the last of these which is the normal meaning of consolida in Latin sources, and the extension to daisies may have been just local and sporadic. 

Ox-eye Daisy does have a herbalist tradition: Gerard witnesses to that, and Mrs Grieve , as ever, is helpful. The Ox-eye Daisy has an acrid taste and, according to Linnaeus, is avoided by cows and pigs, but eaten by horses, goats and sheep.

Ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare). Chippenham, 2 June 2023.

unrejoicing berries

Berries of Taxus baccata (Common Yew)

[Image source: https://strawberryhillhousegardens.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/winter-interest-taxus-baccata/]


https://davisla.wordpress.com/category/yew-tree/


I hope I need no excuse for quoting Wordsworth's very wonderful poem "Yew Trees" in full:



There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:
Not loathe to furnish weapons for the Bands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree! -a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! -and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved, -
Nor uninformed with Fantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; -a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially -beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries -ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide: Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight, Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.



(William Wordsworth, Yew-trees)


"Unrejoicing berries".... yes, that's just what I've always thought about yew berries.


More specifically, I knew that yews were highly toxic and that the cheerfully-coloured berries were to be kept away from.


It was true, I had since learnt that the fleshy part of the berry was not in fact poisonous. But since the pip in the middle of the berry was, that didn't seem to make much practical difference.


*


So I was rather taken aback when I encountered the following passage in John Meade Falkner's Moonfleet (1898):


Now, my favourite seat in the churchyard was the flat top of a raised stone tomb .... Anyone sitting on the grave-top was snug from the weather, and possessed a fine prospect over the sea. On the other three sides, the yews grew close and thick, embowering the tomb like the high back of a fireside chair; and many times in autumn I have seen the stone slab crimson with the fallen waxy berries, and taken some home to my aunt, who like to taste them with a glass of sloe-gin after her Sunday dinner. (Ch 3)


Falkner, I felt sure, could not be unaware that the yew was poisonous.  But as an antiquarian could he have heard of some such country use as he describes?  [The health and safety of impressionable youth was obviously not something that concerned him overmuch.]


*


As usual, the most authoritative account of yew berries and their toxicity is in The Poison Garden:


http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/blog/blog070312.htm


There's also a lot of discussion on foraging sites.


The sweet, slimy flesh can be eaten if the seed is removed. Some wild-food people are quite enthusiastic about this food source.


Songbirds eat the berries, including the seed. The unbroken seeds pass through the gut and the bird is not harmed.


The seeds are highly toxic, three being enough to cause death. But if a child (or adult) eats yew berries and swallows the seeds without chewing them, there's a reasonable chance they'll get away with it in the same way the songbirds do, though this seems a risky sort of game. It's this likelihood of "getting away with it" that probably accounts for John Gerard's comment: "when I was young and went to school, divers of my school fellows and likewise myself did eat our fills of the berries of this tree and hath not only slept under the shadow thereof, but among the branches also, without hurt at all, and that not one time, but many times".


Grain-eating birds with gravel in their crops (like chickens or pigeons) are advised to stay away from yew berries!


So are drinkers of sloe-gin, pending further information...


*


[Wordsworth's lines about longbows reflect a common but mistaken belief. The wood for British longbows was always imported from abroad: British yews don't grow straight enough. So the legend that yews were grown in churchyards to furnish weapons for a desperate defence of the tower is wrong..  More likely, the yews were there long before the church was built. They were a sacred Celtic tree.]