I was admiring the wildflowers in hedgerows on a recent trip to Cornwall but there’s far more to them than just pretty flowers as The Hedgerow Apothecary’s Field Guide to Wildflowers shows.
(Sent review copy. Not paid.)
Written by Christine Iverson, author of other bestselling books about how plants can be used for recipes and remedies, it is an interesting look at flowers we so often take for granted.
The Hedgerow Apothecary’s Field Guide to Wildflowers opens with an overview of herbalists dating back to John Gerard (1545-1612), the plight of wildlflowers – we’ve lost more than 97 per cent of our UK meadows since the 1930s – and what we, as gardeners, can do to help reverse the trend.
There’s advice on preparing plants for use in remedies and instructions on making carrier oils. Above all, the advice is to pick only what you need.
From bird’s foot trefoil to yarrow, we learn how to identify wildflowers, their history, folklore and folk medicine associated with them. Honeysuckle leaves contain salicylic acid, used to make aspirin, shepherd’s purse was used to stop bleeding in the First World War, and the use of docks to treat nettle stings goes back to the ninth century.
We learn that there are more than 1,700 species of buttercup, that money used to be made digging dandelion roots for use in herbal cures, that purple loosestrife was once used in the tanning industry, and that in the 18th century, a coltsfoot flower was painted on the doors of Parisan apothecary shops.
Woven through are instructions on making things such as wildflower seed balls, a minty mouthwash, and Honeysuckle and Wild Rose Lip Balm.
Some of the plants are familiar – cornflower, fern, cowslip – others, such as fumitory, common dodder and navelwort are less so. With good photographs and a clear description, identification is made easy.
If you want to know more about the flowers in our hedges and fields, and how they could be used, this book would be a great place to start.
The Hedgerow Apothecary’s Field Guide to Wildflowers is published by Summersdale with an RRP of £14.99. #Ad You can buy it here for £13.63. (If you buy via this link, I receive a small commission. The price you pay is not affected.) Alternatively, you may wish to buy from an independent bookseller here. All prices correct at time of publication of this post.
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