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Notes from the Apothecary
Notes from the Apothecary: Snowberry Snowberry, or Symphoricarpos, is the name for 15 or so shrubs that boast gorgeous white berries. The plant is part of the honeysuckle family, and is also known as waxberry or the beautifully evocative name, ghostberry. The inspiration to write about this plant came from my 13-year-old, who sent me this cute WhatsApp message on his way home (pictured). It’s lovely to be the “go-to” person for plant info, and nice to be able to give some fast advice on a potentially toxic plant! The interesting thing about snowberries is that, while they can be toxic, they’re also used medicinally in some…
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Notes from The Apothecary
Notes from the Apothecary: Petunias Petunias: Both a beautiful garden flower and a star of the RNA-focused scientific community. Way back in the 1990s, scientists tried to create deep purple petunias by inserting the gene associated with this colour. Instead, the flowers just came out white! Further studies into this led to big discoveries concerning RNA interference and gene silencing, for which scientists Andrew Fire and Craig Mello received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. But it all started with the petunias. Petunia is not a single species, but a genus of flowers that contains around 35 distinct species. They’re all in the Solanaceae family, which also includes…
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Notes from the Apothecary
Notes from the Apothecary: Samhain Special Welcome to the special Samhain edition of Notes from the Apothecary! Samhain is the approximate midpoint between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, and for many in the northern hemisphere, the time when we start to notice the long descent into the colder months. This means there is less wild food, plus fewer herbs and plants growing, so it’s often time to start using up ingredients stored from summer. In this issue, I’m going to go through some of my favourite herbs, fruits, and veggies to use around Samhain, and why I think they’re so magical. 5 Samhain Herbs, Fruits, and Vegetables …
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Notes from the Apothecary
Notes from the Apothecary: Blackberry The humble bramble or blackberry (Rubus fruticosus) is a common sight in British and Irish hedgerows and wild places. Blackberries are also found all over the United States, and may also be called caneberries. Blackberries grow on thick, fast-growing branches covered in thorns, making picking the fruit perilous – use gloves! Each berry is a collection of tiny balls called a drupe, and the taste ranges from sweet to mouth-shrivelling and sour if you pick the tiny, hard ones. In the woods near my house, once you venture away from the paths, the spiky branches trail riotously between tree trunks, making it impossible to create…
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Notes from the Apothecary
Notes from the Apothecary: The Beech Tree The common beech, or Fagus sylvatica, is a majestically large deciduous tree, native to North America and Europe, and a vital part of the ecosystem thanks to being home and food to many forms of wildlife. There are other beech species, all in the Fagus genus, with some native to Asia, including Fagus japonica, the Japanese blue beech, and Fagus engleriana, the Engler or Chinese beech. In the U.K. where I live, we often see “Copper Beeches”, which have distinct, purple-bronze leaves and look like they’re straight out of a fantasy tale. Interestingly, this isn’t a different species, but a carefully cultivated…
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Notes from the Apothecary
Notes from the Apothecary Special: Flowers for Bealtaine Bealtaine is an Irish festival traditionally celebrated on May Eve (April 30th), with many modern celebrations taking place on May 1st. The word is pronounced Bee-ell-tun-uh approximately – at least that’s my best attempt with my very basic Irish! I think it’s important to embrace the correct pronunciation (or as close as you can get) because Irish is a living language and thriving culture, so anglicising Irish words is needless. I pronounced it Bell-tane for many years – now I know better, I try to do better. I’m an English person whose Pagan path is heavily influenced by Irish Paganism, history,…
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Notes from the Apothecary
Notes from the Apothecary: Heather Heather or ling, Calluna vulgaris, is a short, evergreen, bushy shrub with stalks of tiny purple, pink or white flowers, prolific on moorland or heathland. It’s native to Europe but has been introduced to many countries across the world. It often indicates areas of deforestation, where trees have not been allowed to grow back, so the heather and other shorter plants take over. I asked my three-year-old which plant I should explore for this month, and she said, “A pink one!”. After some pondering, I showed her some pictures of pink, purple, and white heather stretching across the moors, and she was delighted. So,…
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Witch Hunt
There are witches all around us. You can find them anywhere… The Witch on Wheels has been documenting her findings. Meet: Isaac Vars Isaac Vars is a Cancer, an herbalist, and a healer who began his magickal practice as a teenager. He and his husband Josh Simonds are owners of Deep Earth Arts in Littleton, New Hampshire – a metaphysical store and apothecary offering a quintessential retail experience for anyone with a love of the esoteric, as well as those interested in non-conventional spiritual practices. I love exploring their space – where my turkey claws and wing fans are for sale – for magickal items not available…
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Notes from the Apothecary
Notes from the Apothecary: Clover Clover is also called trefoil, literally “three-leaves”, and grows in most places around the world. Although many clover plants look similar, there are around 300 species of Trifolium and they’re in the same plant family as peas. Both the round, joyful flowers and the iconic triplet of small, round leaves have a ton of folklore around them – and some surprising modern research, too. The Kitchen Garden Red and white clover are the most common where I live, and often pop up in lawns without any encouragement from gardeners. As well as being a fantastic food source for bees and other insects,…
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Notes from the Apothecary
Notes from the Apothecary: The Orange Oranges: juicy, bright globes filled with vitamin C and sunshine. The orange is a citrus fruit that’s one of the most cultivated fruits in the world, and may have been cultivated by humans for around 2,500 years. The sweet orange as we know it today is a hybrid of mandarins and pomelos, and is very different from bitter oranges, the likes of which often line the streets of towns in Mediterranean countries. I once made the mistake of plucking and peeling a juicy looking orange while in Spain, only to have my mouth shrivelled by the intense bitterness! Sweet oranges, in comparison,…