Country Sights and Sounds
John Shelley
MANY of our roadside hedges are currently dominated by the yellow and white of oxeye daisies – apart, that is, from the few areas where the hedge-trimming brigade have found their out of seasonal urges impossible to suppress. This type of destructive activity has lessened considerably over the last couple of years, and for this we should be thankful. Consequently, many of the wild flowers that had all but disappeared from public view are slowly re-establishing themselves in places where they can be properly appreciated. There are still a few authorities that would cut and spray with piratical abandon, but these are in a decreasing minority.
We know better nowadays, than to try and drive nature back. We are, after all, not fighting against the natural world, but learning how best to live with it. We need the wild flowers, both for simple pleasure and complicated diversity. ‘People are more important than birds!’ is the oft-heard cry of those who love straight lines, speed and efficiency, who delight in promptitude and sterility. ‘Why should we slow down when we can go faster?’ It might be possible to shave two minutes from the time that we spend commuting, but we would do well to ask ourselves: what will we do with those two minutes?
Wouldn’t it be better to leave home two minutes earlier and enjoy the journey? Of course it would. Leave the flowers to those who enjoy an ambling pace. Leave us our moths and other insects that feed on those flowers and fascinate us with their behaviour and their intricate beauty. And leave us the birds that depend very much on those same insects.
I took a handful of oxeyes from a well-populated bank and placed them in a vase in the kitchen, where they looked very pretty. The vase was later moved to a position underneath an open window. I asked why. ‘Because of the smell!’ was the reply. Smell, I think, is rather a harsh term for the admittedly dour scent of these flowers. Unless one sniffs deeply with ones nose buried right into the bunch it is barely discernable. Further, I consider the alternative name of ‘dog daisy’ undeserved, and unkind. That is my opinion. Others members of my household are convinced otherwise and eventually my flowers were evicted from the house altogether. I had to retrieve one from the yard in order to inspect it properly, and examine it in the light of my books.
One publication tells me that in olden times the leaves were often added to a mixed salad dish, and suggested they might make an interesting addition to our modern diet. I tasted one, and instantly concluded that the author must either be given to practical joking, or had at least failed to give his recommendation a proper trial. ‘Distinctly Medicinal’ might be the kindest description of the pungent flavour. Another reference promises that the unopened flower buds have a ‘uniquely delicate taste’, something I am determined to put to the test as soon as I remember to do so.
Others must have been similarly impressed, for the oxeye daisy has long been a favourite with herbalists. For hundreds of years a decoction of boiled leaves and flower heads has been used to relieve a variety of bronchial disorders, including asthma. Elsewhere, physicians made a paste from the entire plant and used it to reduce inflammation and bruising, as well as to expedite the healing of open wounds.
The oxeye has other names too: bull daisy, devil’s daisy, moon daisy. Another name, Margeurite, was designated after 15-year-old Princess Margeret of Anjon, on the occasion of her wedding to King Henry IV in 1445, chose to have her wedding robes embroidered with a spray of three of these flowers.
The oxeye daisy grows in many parts of the world, having escaped into the wilds after being imported as an exotic garden perennial. In some parts of the United States it is considered a noxious weed, and attempts are being made to eradicate it, while in other parts of the same country it is being planted along roadsides, to beautify them. Somewhere, somebody will finally get it right.
