In Praise of Goosegrass

(Image: AnRo0002, Licensed under Wikipedia Commons)

A few mornings ago my love and I saw a small spring wonder. We were sitting in his living room, drinking tea no doubt, when the rose bush just under the window began to quiver. He crept up to the window, peeked out, and exclaimed that there was a tiny bird pecking insects from the stems of the plant. We were entranced, enchanted, enraptured. “What do you think it is!?” he asked. We decided that it was 'one of those little brown ones'...

The things of the hedge are often unobtrusive and easily overlooked. When they are birds they are often 'those little brown ones', when they are plants they are often 'one of those green leafy things'. And thus they keep their commonplace mystery. So it is with goosegrass, which is one of our most omnipresent 'green leafy things'. The ubiquitous nature of goosegrass is clear from the range of 'folk names' that it has attracted during its irrepressible journey across our wild places; cleavers, clivers, catchweed, sticky willy, sticky willow, robin~run~the~hedge, stickyweed, velcro weed, grip grass, clabber grass, coachweed, cleaver wort, goose hair, gosling weed, hedge burrs, milk sweet, poor robin, loveman, stick~a~back, sweethearts, savoyan, scratchweed, barweed, hedheheriff, robin~run~in~the~grass, mutton chops, everlasting friendship, amor de hortelano, ladies' straw, eriffe, gia maria, goosebill, grateron, hayruff, kaz yogurtoto, and zhu yang yang. Quite a presence for such an unprepossessing green being and yet, when I point it out to people they have rarely heard of it or noticed its existence.

My own first memory of goosegrass is within the last ten years; it may be that I had noticed it before but, without a name to pin it there, it had slipped through my conscious mind like mist. What I do remember is that I was walking through the a quieter part of Avebury stone circle and that around the bottom of a small and twisted tree were some unobtrusive little plants with beautiful whorls of leaves that were sticky to the touch. I don't even remember who told me what they were but, whenever I see goosegrass now, I always think of that moment in Avebury stone circle. That they were close to a stone cottage that I often daydream about living in has only added to their place in my 'folk-telling' of the land. When I think of goosegrass I think of that little stone cottage with its blossom tree and there are always white sheets blowing in the wind on a washing line. That, for me, is goosegrass; a symbol of what is simple, common, in the best sense of the word, and feels like home.

The scientific Latin name of goosegrass is 'galium aparine' and it is an herbaceous annual plant, which means that it completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seed within one year before dying. It is part of the Rubiaceae family of plants, which is known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family, and has 13,000 members species, ranging from trees, to shrubs and herbs. Being part of the same family as the coffee bean, the seeds of goosegrass can be dried and roasted and used as an excellent low-caffeine coffee alternative.

So, where can we find goosegrass? Probably all it needs is to look down when we are walking in

woods, hedgerows, and waste places, and also in our gardens if we allow the wild its place there. It is described by herbalist and naturopath Lucinda Warner as “one of the first spring allies to appear” and is often found close to those other inhabitants of forgotten corners, the stinging nettles. How they make the wasteland green! Goosegrass has creeping stems, which can be 3ft or more long, and which branch and grow along the ground and through other plants. They are born explorers and can be especially recognised by the tiny hook-like hairs that grow from their stems and leaves. These give them their 'sticky' feeling to the touch and also enable them to climb and attach their seeds, or burrs, to animal fur which helps their dispersal. In the early spring to summer they produce tiny star-shaped white flowers and the plants provide food for the larvae of many butterfly species.

(Image: AnRo0002, Licensed under Wikipedia Commons)

Goosegrass is native to Europe, North Africa, and Asia and is naturalised “throughout most of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, Southern America, Australia, some oceanic islands, and scattered locations in Africa.” (1) Plants may not be able to move according to the perspective of most humans but the sticky burrs of goosegrass have managed to move a very long way. In many places it is considered to be a noxious weed, although that of course just means that it grows where we haven't decided to put it and often refuses to leave when asked! Which brings us to goosegrass's relationship with humankind.

Goosegrass is both an edible and a medicinal plant. When cooked it has been compared to spinach, although it is said to have a slightly bitter taste and so is better in soups and stews rather than eaten on its own. It is also possible to eat the leaves raw, although cooking removes the tiny hooks, and there is a report from Mulcheney, Somerset of someone who remembers nibbling the raw shoots of goosegrass as a child before feeding the whole plant to their ducks. (2) It is a plant that is much prized by geese for nibbling purposes and many of its related names may come from this link, or from its goose-foot shaped leaves.

Medicinally goosegrass is a gentle diuretic and lymphatic tonic, which cleanses the system after the stagnant months of winter. As a poultice or wash, its juice and pulp has been used traditionally to treat skin ailments, minor wounds, and burns. Its pulp has also been used to alleviate poisonous bites or stings. In 1653, Nicholas Culpepper said that;

“It is under the dominion of the Moon. The juice of the herb and the seed together taken in wine, helpeth those bitten with an adder, by preserving the heart from the venom. It is familiarly taken in broth, to keep them lean and lank that are apt to grow fat.” (3)

(Image: Flowers, AnRo0002, Licensed under Wikipedia Commons)

(Image: Burrs. Rasbak. Licensed under Wikipedia Commons)

Goosegrass can also alleviate anxiety, as it has mildly sedative affects, may lower blood pressure, and tea made from its stalks and leaves can remove obstructions from the throat. There are also reports that it is helpful in treating cancer. It can also safely be used for the long-term treatment of animals and is especially helpful for cats suffering from feline urinary tract disease (3). An excellent article on the nature of goosegrass and its healing abilities by Lucinda Warner of 'Whispering Earth' can be found here. I love her belief that goosegrass, as one of the first green beings to appear in the spring, is perfectly placed to cleanse our bodies after the winter and also encourages us to play, and to begin moving our bodies again, through the many traditional games that involve chasing others and sticking goosegrass onto them. She particularly mentions, 'how many cleavers can you stick on someone's back before they notice'! There are also many folk beliefs involving throwing goosegrass at a young woman to see whether they stick; if they do then she has a admirer, if they fall then her hopes fall with them, although in some traditions the fallen plant is said to spell out the initial of her love to come (2).

A further use of our unobtrusive green companion can be guessed at from its Latin name, which translates as 'milk seizer', and physician and botanist Dioscorides (40 – 90 CE) reported that Greek shepherds would gather together the stems of goosegrass to create a rough sieve for straining milk. Carl Linnaeus (1707 - 1778), one of the founders of modern ecology, wrote of the same use in Sweden and the practice has continued into modern times. The plants were also used to curdle milk in cheese making and it was believed that contact with them would convey their healing properties to the dairy products. Its roots can also be used to create a permanent red dye and, like all plants of the 'bedstraw' family, its dried leaves were traditionally used to stuff mattresses, particularly as its hooks meant that it could be shaped into a stable mat that would provide uniform thickness. Mary is said to have used goosegrass to make a bed for her newborn child. 

Like all beings of the hedge, goosegrass is rarely noticed but holds much magic. We would do well not to underestimate these little green plants that we so often don't know the name of. Oh, and the 'little brown bird' turned out to be a chiffchaff...

(Image: Chiffchaff. Ken Billington/Licensed under Wikipedia Commons)

References:

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galium_aparine

2) http://www.plant-lore.com/587/cleavers/

3) http://www.anniesremedy.com/herb_detail215.php

Dirt and Dog Daisies

Photo: Natural Resources Conservation Service Soil Health Campaign

I once went to a workshop led by the American writer and activist, Starhawk and she taught us a chant that I have never forgotten. It began...

“Humble yourself in the arms of the wild, you gotta lay down low, and humble yourself in the arms of the wild, you gotta ask her what she knows...”

We are taught that what is low is worth less, that somehow we should aspire to more than to be, or connect with, what is low. We live in a hierarchical, dualistic world and we are not much used to looking down. We are taught to look for our 'higher' selves, to aim high, to value the highs and ignore the lows. The word 'humble' is defined as, 'having a low or modest appreciation of one's importance', 'of low social, administrative, or political rank', and 'causing someone to feel less important or proud'. Synonyms for humble are meek, deferential, submissive, unassertive, lowly, working class, plebian, proletarian, poor, mean, ignoble. Its roots are in the Old French h(umble), from the Latin humilis, meaning 'low', or 'on the ground', and in the word humus, 'of the earth/ground'. The root is also linked to the words 'human' and 'humane'; we are so deeply of the earth and our kindness and gentleness of being is linked to this connection ~ to our being 'humble'/of the 'humus'. To be truly human we must be brought down low and, rather than being the place of denigration and humiliation that we have been taught, it is a place of tiny wonder and wild energy.

The earth that we walk on (and best barefoot) is called the 'pedosphere', or what William Bryant Logan in his book, 'Dirt' calls 'the ecstatic skin of the earth'. This is the outermost layer of our planet, creating the surface of the Earth, along with the rock-bones of the lithosphere. We tend to the think of the soil as something that is 'just there', occasionally in the autumn aware of the fallen leaves that create further layers, and yet the soil is a living, breathing organism in constant movement. Bryant Logan prefers the word 'dirt', because in using that word we are really moving into the depth of things, away from 'soil', which feels cleaner and more hygienic somehow, into the processes that we don't really want to think about; into the realm of filth, grime, and shit. There is always somewhere lower to go! Soil is something that we might use, dirt is something that we would rather avoid. For Bryant Logan “'Dirt' is a good word. It goes straight back to the Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse. Like 'love', 'fuck', 'house', 'hearth', 'earth', 'wrath', and 'word', it is short and strong. It leaves a taste in the mouth.” My mum, to my constant disgust, used to call margarine, 'fat'. I think that she would have liked the word dirt. I was squeamish back then. I know better now.

Bryant Williams points out that we don't really know very much about dirt. If you look up humus it will usually be defined as, 'deeply altered, black organic matter, an integral part of soil organic matter' and yet it is also acknowledged that humus is in reality extremely difficult to define. Even the soil scientist, Hans Jenny said that, “humus is imperfectly understood' and Dr James Rice has said that, “It is very possible that no two humus molecules are or have ever been alike”. We are used to thinking about pristine and pure snowflakes in this way but not dirt. When we talk about soil we are not discussing a 'thing', but rather huge and constant processes of growth, decay, feeding, digestion, excretion, and communication. Lierre Keith, in her book 'The Vegetarian Myth: food, justice, and sustainability', explains that...

“One tablespoon of soil contains more than one million living organisms and, yes, every one of them is eating...a square metre of topsoil can contain a thousand different species of animals. These might include 120 million nematodes, 100,000 mites, 45,000 springtails, 20,000 enchytraeid worms, and 10,000 molluscs.

All those tiny creatures live in and around humus, which is a combination of humic acid and polysaccharides. “No one knows how humic acid forms, but once formed it acts like a living creature” writes Stephen Harold Buhner”.

And she reflects that, “Animals like me were just consumers, hitching along for the ride. I couldn't photosynthesise – turn sun into mass – nor could I turn that mass back into carbon and minerals. They could and they did and, because of them, life was possible. I was made humble.”

The soil is a million creatures who have organised themselves into a mutually dependent and supporting system over millions of years and they are the basis of terrestrial life on this planet. William Bryant Logan writes that, “radical disorder is the key to the function of humus. At the molecular level, it may indeed be the most disordered material on Earth...neither humus nor humans are humble at all. We are audacious, like nature herself. We are wet, fecund, protean, dangerous. When we start to comprehend this we know something worth knowing...”

Or perhaps we just need to redefine the meaning of the word humble for, in our connection to the earth, in our humanness, we become a wonder. When Francis Bacon, the 17^th Century philosopher and scientist during the 'Age of Reason', said "[nature will be] bound into service, hounded in her wanderings and put on the rack and tortured for her secrets” he had clearly not counted on the unruliness of the very earth beneath his feet, nor on the innate rebelliousness of her people.

In discussing dirt I hope that I have begun to reveal the importance of language in our connection to ourselves, to our own power, our sense of wonder, and to our connection to the world around us. Often our understanding of a word will cause us to discount the thing that word has come to describe, and so it is with 'dog'. One of my favourite wildflowers, which is sometimes brought low by being described as a 'weed', is the dog daisy. The term 'weed' has no botanical significance and merely denotes a plant that is considered undesirable in a particular situation, or which has grown in the 'wrong' place. However, I would suggest that we have a greater ability to withstand some plants in the wrong place than others. The value that we put on nature is insidious, causing us to tolerate some living, growing beings and to attempt to control or obliterate others. How we make these judgements is subtle and often language is a large part of that, hence those who wish to kill foxes labelling them as 'vermin' even though they are not legally classified as such.

Photo: wildseed.co.uk

The dog daisy, also known as ox-eye daisy, common daisy, moon daisy, and white-weed. is a widespread flowering plant native to Europe. It is a flower of meadows and scrublands, and often of 'disturbed' areas such as wasteland. It is our largest native member of the daisy family and brings stunning beauty to forgotten places; abandoned land, roadside verges, railway banks, and wasteground. It's Latin genus name vulgare means 'common', as does its English name 'dog'. It is loved by butterflies, particularly the meadow brown, and by bees and hoverflies. Medicinally, has been used to treat whooping cough, asthma, and 'nervous excitability' and to heal external wounds, bruises and ulcers. The dog daisy is also sometimes known as the 'Maudlin daisy', having been associated with Mary Magdalene, that most denigrated of women. Other flowers linked to 'dog' and its implication of worthlessness, are the dog rose, and the common dog violet which, having no scent, was considered 'only suitable for dogs'. Always those things which grow wild and in their own way, or which have no obvious use to humans, are considered by some to be 'lesser' and that mindset often transfers to the 'people of the commons' too.

It is time for us to reclaim what it means to be low, and connect to the power of what it is to be truly the people of the earth. With the wonder of dirt and humus in mind, we need to reclaim our 'mother tongue' and find new synonyms for the word humble; wild, radical, unruly, connected, alive, applying those words to ourselves and to all beings, green and otherwise, who have been dragged down by judgemental and controlling language. And, for inspiration, all we need to do is look down.

“Humble yourself in the arms of the wild, you gotta lay down low, and humble yourself in the arms of the wild, you gotta ask her what she knows...”

Further reading:

'Dirt: the Ecstatic Skin of the Earth', William Bryant Logan, 1995.

'The Vegetarian Myth: food, justice, and sustainability', Lierre Keith, 2009.