Plant-Lore

I remember in Brazil the latex of green papayas being used to treat warts [Natural History Museum, London, February 2026].

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Another use of spindle is to plant it in your garden to keep blackfly off your broad beans [Vicia faba]; they go for the spindle and leave the beans alone [Prestwood Nature Reserve, Buckinghamshire, August 2023].

Boxelder trees (Ashleaf maple) – These trees grew in abundance at my Wisconsin home, some upwards of 50 feet in height.

As children we used to play with stork’s-bill (redstem filaree) by making a slit in one ‘bill’ and then putting another into the slit to play with them as if they were scissors.

In the Far East they cut branches of holy [or sacred] bamboo with berries to garland their homes.

Great willowherb known locally as codlins-and-cream [Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, February 1991].