There's a clump of feverfew that's growing by my chicken feed shed all spring.
I know it's feverfew but I don't know how I know that (if that makes sense). I can't ever remember looking it up, maybe I saw it in a book once and it stayed in my memory. But my daughter was asking me just the other day what the flower was.
I thought it was a great exercise to confirm the knowledge in my brain, that it was the right plant, and show her that looking things up in a book is a good way to identify something you're not sure of. So we picked a sprig of flowers and went to one of my identification books (I have many) that I brought from a carboot sale years ago for a couple of pounds.
This book is called "The Wild Flowers Of The British Isles" by Garrard & Streeter and although I know that these days most people just post a picture of a plant on a forum or a Facebook group and expect someone to come up with an answer, I still think it's great to look it up in a book. To me it seems a much more accessible medium to a young child.
Luckily I was right, my daughter seemed to really enjoy the process and it was a fun five minute activity to do together.
Apparently this plant is a great migraine preventative along with other medicinal uses.
Anyone use this plant? I have loads growing!
It's probably one of those common wild flowers that as you grow they become familiar (does that happen to children these days?). I use the Garrad and Streeter book too. My favourite, though not sure much for identification, is Flora Britannica by Richard Mabey (of Food for Free fame) which is full of the folk and medicinal history of British wild plants.
ReplyDeleteI have quite a few by Roger Phillips as well, they're really good for identification. I haev one on trees and one on mushrooms as well as a wild food cook book he did (really good read).
DeleteI do love food for free so I'll keep an eye out for his other one. I'm terrible with books and have far too many!
You know I thought the one here was feverfew, but it has a tiny bit longer petals, and slightly less of them than yours. Might be because of being in the USA, but now I'm wondering if the ones here are just common wild daisies.Will have to check on that.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting!
They might be different over there or there might be variation between plants. The leaves are the giveaway I think, they match perfectly with the ones in the book. Bitter as anything to eat though.
DeleteHi Kev, there are women's face creams on the market that have feverfew in them, the claim is to reduce aging and wrinkles, but I don't know how effective that is considering they load the creams with chemicals anyway. But maybe in some kind of homemade cream it would be good for the skin?
ReplyDeleteAre you saying I have wrinkles...
DeleteHa! Subtlety is my specialty! ;)
DeleteAwesome that you can tell what's what from a book. Whatever skill that is, I lack it lol.
ReplyDeleteJust recently we told our GK's about encyclopedias. They were not familiar with them at all. They are 9 and 13. The 9 year old was especially awestruck and spent the evening just reading the Volume "K" Limiting the screen time. That's what this Yaya does.
ReplyDeleteMy gran fave it to us when we were kids, it brings down sweats as well as headaches. I am not sure it is strong enough for a full blown migraine, but if you know you have one coming (for me this is twinkling lights around objects think the ready brek man), then I eat the leaves in a sandwich.
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