Plant
Meadowsweet
Picture to come.
A tall plant of damp meadows and riverbanks with frothy, strongly scented cream flowers. It was traditionally linked with mead: an older name, 'meadsweet', suggests it was used for flavouring. Chaucer names it in a herbal drink, and it was later strewn on floors for its scent. Meadowsweet flowers were found with a Bronze Age cremation in Wales. Direct evidence for its use in twelfth-century England is lacking.
Caveats (confidence: medium)
The mead-flavouring link rests on names recorded from the 15th century; strewing is documented mainly in the 16th century. Its role in later aspirin chemistry is irrelevant to this period.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Made by
- Forage