Wet weather has spawned a smelly by-product which thrives anywhere (From Darlington and Stockton Times)

Wet weather has spawned a smelly by-product which thrives anywhere

12:18pm Friday 5th June 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share

THE rains of recent weeks produced an interesting side-effect in one of our local woodlands. While its display of bluebells was fading, the woodland floor was covered with wild garlic that was producing its distinctive scent.

It was almost overwhelming in its intensity and there is little doubt the damp atmosphere and wet ground conditions had combined to strengthen that powerful aroma.

The smell of garlic is not favoured by everyone but the plant in question is formally known as ramsons (allium ursinum) although most of us refer to it as wild garlic. It is a tough plant with large and shiny green leaves that are shaped like the head of a spear, and its favourite locations are deciduous woodlands where there is plenty of shade. It has a happy knack of thriving almost anywhere in Britain.

It grows prolifically among the trees and ground cover and, in the spring and early summer, each plant produces a crop of tall slender flowers bearing spiky white heads with several florets. But the prevailing scent of garlic makes it unmistakable.

As a child, I used to play in such a woodland with a thick carpet of ramsons; we made tracks through the thick covering of green leaves and now I know why my mother often complained that my clothes and shoes smelt of onions.

The name of ramsons often provokes curiosity because it seems to be so strange but there are several suggestions about its source. One is that ramsons derives from either the German or Scandinavian word rams that in turn comes from an older word that meant rank.

Rank suggests that the scent of the flower is not very pleasant, and this was often the case if cows ate the leaves. The scent of garlic would be transferred to their milk.

Another suggestion is that the second section of its formal Latin species name ursinum is linked to ursus, meaning a bear. In some places, it is thought the leaves of ramsons resemble those of bears but another possibility is that wild garlic was always considered inferior to the cultivated variety and consequently only fit for the food of bears.

The ancient Greeks referred to the plant as a stinking rose and anyone who ate it was forbidden to enter the Temples of Cybele, the mother of the gods. They believed the odour was unfavourable to their ceremonies although Greek athletes chewed garlic before competing in their events.

They believed it provided the necessary courage apart from increasing their strength.

The value of ramsons as a herb has always been popular and its leaves were often added to salads and other dishes, generally in the belief that they guaranteed good health and a long life. The Ancient Egyptians hung garlands of garlic around their necks to drive away worms and disease, while the pharoah Cheops administered doses of garlic to the workforce who built the Great Pyramid.

In the great days of the English abbeys, the monks grew the finer variety of cultivated garlic in their monastic gardens where it was a popular additive to their food. Heavy drinkers of alcohol would sometimes add a few cloves of cultivated garlic to their wine or mix with their food before a heavy session of drinking. They believed it prevented headaches and sickness.

There is a record of one of the French kings rubbing the lips of his children with garlic before making them sip a drop of wine. He reckoned this would make them appreciate the excellent qualities of wine so that they would never abuse it when they became adults.

There is little doubt that cultivated garlic does aid our digestive systems as well as aiding the functions of the heart, but no-one has yet produced a solution to the problem of breath smelling of garlic.

In addition to ramsons, there is another type of wild garlic known as crow garlic that is found chiefly in southern England where farmers regard it as a serious pest, because it is impervious to most weedkillers. It is called crow garlic because it is considered fit only for crows. Yet another species is known as field garlic.

Incidentally, the range of wild garlics are part of the lily family of flowers that also includes onions, chives, leeks and shallots, while embracing bluebells, lily-of-the-valley and others.

TODAY is the Feast Day of St Boniface, an English saint and martyr who was born in Crediton in about 680. His real name was Wynfrith but he was always known as Boniface.

He became a priest at the age of 30 and spent many years in a Benedictine monastery before deciding he would like to see more of the world and to teach the gospel to a wider audience.

He travelled across Europe, where he arrived in Rome. There, he asked the Pope’s assistance in his missionary work, after which he crossed the Alps and went to Germany.

During his travels, Boniface became renowned for his ability to convert heathens and made a reputation for himself by cutting down a famous oak tree known as the Thunderer’s Oak. This was a sacred tree dedicated to the god Thor.

Boniface never returned to England and most of his missionary activities became centred in Germany. He did visit Rome on occasions to provide the Pope with an account of his work and in fact he was elevated to the rank of bishop and later archbishop and then, when he was over 70 years of age, decided to turn his attention to Holland. By then, he had established his reputation as one of the world’s finest and greatest teachers of the faith.

However, his reputation as the priest who chopped down the pagan symbol of the Thunderer’s Oak preceded him and while reading one night in his tent at Dokkum, he was attacked by a group of heathens and martyred.

He is said to be better known in Germany than in his native England, but he is the patron saint of tailors and brewers. However, that business with the oak tree lives on because he is widely known as The Thunderer.

DUE to the heat of the sun, June is often called Flaming June but in fact it can be cold and wet, sometimes with dense fogs.

Nonetheless, the Saxons called it Seremonath, that meant the dry month and an old Dutch name was Zomermonath, meaning the month of summer.

The name June may come from junius indicating youth, although another suggestion is that it derives from Juno who, in Roman mythology, was the queen of heaven and sister of Jupiter.

Our weather lore contains a wealth of sayings about June but they seem to be contradictory so far as rain is concerned.

One of them tells us that a cold and wet June spoils the rest of the year, while another says that a dripping June brings all things in tune, and that a damp June does the farmer no harm, provided it is warm.

So far as cold weather is concerned, one old forecast is that a north wind in June heralds a good rye harvest.

Next Monday, June 8, is the feast day of St Medard and there is an ancient saying that if it rains on his feast day, we can expect rain for another 40 days. However, if June turns out to be a sunny and warm month, then we can expect an early harvest although there is a contrary saying that a leak in June brings the harvest soon.

• Print
• Email
• Share