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Plant Superstitions & Beliefs

AnonyJ

AnonyJ

Captainess Sensible
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Messages
2,003
Location
Having-a-nice-cup-of-tea-and-a-sit-down-shire
I've heard a few interesting tales and encountered some quite odd beliefs/superstitions built up around various plants and trees. The ones I can remember off the top of my head:

Lilac - it's very bad luck to cut the flowers and also to bring lilac blooms inside

Ivy - I lived in a ground floor flat that had some ivy growing around it, a neighbour said they 'heard' that ivy brought bad luck and bad health if it started growing up and around a house. (It wasn't the happiest few years living there and I also developed a serious health issue before I moved out)

Perennial Phlox - several people have said to me independently that it's associated with depression. I have no idea where this comes from but it's odd that I've heard it, unprompted from different sources.

Elder - that it shouldn't be allowed to grow in a garden or by a house but only in the wild. I put this one down to the foul 'doggy' smell the leaves and wood have when cut or crushed.

Please add yours!
 
Cow parsley was called Mother/Mummy Die when I was a child. If you picked it your mother would DIE!
Various plants are 'Mother Die' in different parts of the country. In Cheshire where I come from it was the cow parsley - possibly too easily confused with hemlock - and elsewhere yarrow and hawthorn.

Dandelions were known as 'Wee The Beds' because picking them would assuredly cause you that particular nocturnal embarrassment.
Dandelions are indeed enuretic but you have to do more than just pick them.
 
AnonyJoolz said:
Lilac - it's very bad luck to cut the flowers and also to bring lilac blooms inside
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I love lilac and have always wanted to grow the three colours together. It would have to stay outside though!
 
escargot said:
Cow parsley was called Mother/Mummy Die when I was a child. If you picked it your mother would DIE!
Various plants are 'Mother Die' in different parts of the country. In Cheshire where I come from it was the cow parsley - possibly too easily confused with hemlock - and elsewhere yarrow and hawthorn.

Dandelions were known as 'Wee The Beds' because picking them would assuredly cause you that particular nocturnal embarrassment.
Dandelions are indeed enuretic but you have to do more than just pick them.
Click to expand...

I've never heard the 'Mother Die' folklore, interesting one, thank you. I remember "wee the bed" well, now you've reminded me of it!
 
escargot said:
Dandelions were known as 'Wee The Beds' because picking them would assuredly cause you that particular nocturnal embarrassment.
Dandelions are indeed enuretic but you have to do more than just pick them.
Click to expand...
In France, they're called 'pissenlits' - so, a similar meaning.
 
Frideswide said:
May/Hawthorn - another must not be brought indoors.
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Oooh I've not heard that one before!

Locally the May blossom is referred to as 'May snow' in the early spring and in Glastonbury the 'holy thorn' existed until 2019 when the landowner removed it entirely, apparently in repsonse to being refused planning permission to build houses nearby :(
 
AnonyJoolz said:
Oooh I've not heard that one before!

Locally the May blossom is referred to as 'May snow' in the early spring and in Glastonbury the 'holy thorn' existed until 2019 when the landowner removed it entirely, apparently in repsonse to being refused planning permission to build houses nearby :(
Click to expand...

This post received a 'sad face' smiley from me solely because there isn't a FURIOUS one.
 
I expect we were all told that if we got stung by a nettle, there'd be a handy dock leaf around nearby to soothe the misery? On recent walks with my daughter, I have noticed that this may not always be true!
 
bugmum said:
I expect we were all told that if we got stung by a nettle, there'd be a handy dock leaf around nearby to soothe the misery? On recent walks with my daughter, I have noticed that this may not always be true!
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Yup, I was told that and in fact believed that 'dock' was actually 'Doc', as in Doctor!
Almost anything would do to soothe a kid with nettle stings because the pain soon stops and a pleasant tingling starts instead.
 
bugmum said:
I expect we were all told that if we got stung by a nettle, there'd be a handy dock leaf around nearby to soothe the misery? On recent walks with my daughter, I have noticed that this may not always be true!
Click to expand...
That happened when I was young. In the back garden, I stung myself on nettles and my grandma grabbed a dock leaf.
I haven't seen a dock leaf for years.
 
escargot said:
Almost anything would do to soothe a kid with nettle stings because the pain soon stops and a pleasant tingling starts instead.
Click to expand...

Even if you have fallen in the nettles and are totally covered? I remember them itching like crazy for a while...

I was also telling the offspring about how, if you grasped the nettle firmly, you break off the spines that inject the irritant before they can do their job - it's brushing against them that causes the pain. She asked if I had ever tried it. I wanted to say yes, but genuinely cannot remember having that much nerve to try it!
 
bugmum said:
Even if you have fallen in the nettles and are totally covered? I remember them itching like crazy for a while...

I was also telling the offspring about how, if you grasped the nettle firmly, you break off the spines that inject the irritant before they can do their job - it's brushing against them that causes the pain. She asked if I had ever tried it. I wanted to say yes, but genuinely cannot remember having that much nerve to try it!
Click to expand...

I've done the nettle-grabbing trick and it works. As I recall I was taught it by a Traveller girl when we were both about 9. I reckon she knew all about nettles because they're edible.
 
escargot said:
Cow parsley was called Mother/Mummy Die when I was a child. If you picked it your mother would DIE!
Various plants are 'Mother Die' in different parts of the country. In Cheshire where I come from it was the cow parsley - possibly too easily confused with hemlock - and elsewhere yarrow and hawthorn.

Dandelions were known as 'Wee The Beds' because picking them would assuredly cause you that particular nocturnal embarrassment.
Dandelions are indeed enuretic but you have to do more than just pick them.
Click to expand...

Cow Parsley is also know as Kecks - or Kecksies.
 
Xanatic* said:
The tomato was considered poisonous for a while. It is in the nightshade family, but just the leaves and stalk are poisonous.
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I have a friend that gets a very upset stomach is she eats from the belladonna family. She can eat potatoes if they are majorly processed, but that's about it. Tomatoes and peppers absolutely murder her.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
I have a friend that gets a very upset stomach is she eats from the belladonna family. She can eat potatoes if they are majorly processed, but that's about it. Tomatoes and peppers absolutely murder her.
Click to expand...
Tomatoes used to be one of the foods you were told to avoid if you suffer with Crohn’s disease. That advice doesn’t seem to be current any longer. One of the hard things about the disease, especially after suffering with it for over 45 years is the advice is constantly changing. What we were once advised to avoid we can now consume whilst other foods that were good for us 20 or more years ago we are now told to avoid.
I sometimes ignore some of the advice I am now getting as I generally know through experience what I can and cannot eat/drink.
 
Never eat Blackberries after (I think) Michaelmas 'cos the Devil,s pissed on them after then, must be said sweetness has gone by late summer.
Always ask/thank any tree that you pick fruit/flowers/nuts from that you intend to eat/drink.
I always pour the dregs of my wine and beer making around the vines and hops, them a small libation from the finished product, they grow pretty good.
Never tried wassailling my fruit trees, but am serious;y thinking of it in the future.
This year the May/Hawthorn blossom smelled really strong again (it varies each year), I've mentioned it in another thread before. Still can't figure out a reason why, strangely I've not heard any superstitions about that !.
 
Bullseye said:
Never eat Blackberries after (I think) Michaelmas 'cos the Devil,s pissed on them after then, must be said sweetness has gone by late summer.
Always ask/thank any tree that you pick fruit/flowers/nuts from that you intend to eat/drink.
I always pour the dregs of my wine and beer making around the vines and hops, them a small libation from the finished product, they grow pretty good.
Never tried wassailling my fruit trees, but am serious;y thinking of it in the future.
This year the May/Hawthorn blossom smelled really strong again (it varies each year), I've mentioned it in another thread before. Still can't figure out a reason why, strangely I've not heard any superstitions about that !.
Click to expand...

BULLSEYE!!!!!!! :D
 
Madame Mollusc, your servant as ever.....I still remember that raspberry beer...........here's a new superstition, never make beer with raspberries or something, something, something....
 
Flowers, especially in the context of floristry, are full of meaning. I once picked out a bunch of flowers to take to a friend's mother in hospital and was ordered by the florist to put them all back because thy were red and white, which as any rule kno (I didn't) are for FUNERALS.
 
pandacracker said:
Tomatoes used to be called love apples because of their aphrodisiacal qualities!
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The scientific name (genus) for the tomato is Lycopersicon which roughly translates as wolf peach, a much better name if you ask me. The Romans used to eat wolf peaches but everyone forgot what they were and when they gave tomatoes their scientific name someone decided wolf peach was too cool a name not to reuse.
 
As mentioned above;
If you pick dandelions you'll wet the bed.

Spit on a dock leaf and wrap around a nettle sting.

Something about placing a cabbage leaf or a lettuce leaf against a sore lactating breast. I always assumed this is a cooling action?

Don't eat unwashed blackberries picked from low down because dogs/foxes have pissed on them!
 
It's good luck to tread on the first daisy of the year. But don't let the baby touch that first daisy because fairies will come and take her away. In fact fairies love daisies so much it's best to keep them completely away from babby.
 
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