Rosemary for remembrance...

I must admit that I haven't left the house today, except for a quick tour round the garden. After some early sunshine, which I missed, it's been cold and grey and not very tempting. I've spent all day sorting photographs for a talk on the flora of Peterborough, that I'm giving next month. I've found plenty of suitable images, and have the framework of the talk in my head. Just need to do a bit more research to flesh it out!

The rosemary bush is always one of the earliest plants to flower and one of ours has lots of blossom on it already. By the time I went out the light had almost gone, so this was brought indoors and photographed in the kitchen. You can see that I've tweaked the curves considerably - it was decidedly insipid to start with! :)

Rosemary is a powerful herb that is particularly associated with functions of the head, relieving nervous headaches, promoting a healthy scalp and hair and assisting the memory. It contains the antioxidants carnosic acid and rosmarinic acid, and other bioactive compounds including camphor, caffeic acid, ursolic acid, betulinic acid, rosmaridiphenol, and rosmanol. Some of these may be useful in preventing or treating cancers, strokes and Alzheimer's Disease.

The name derives from the Latin words ros marinus, which translates as dew of the sea. According to legend, it was draped around the Greek goddess Aphrodite when she rose from the sea, born of Ouranos's semen. The Virgin Mary is said to have spread her blue cloak over a white-blossomed rosemary bush when she was resting, and the flowers turned blue. The shrub then became known as the 'Rose of Mary'

In the Middle Ages, rosemary was associated with wedding ceremonies - the bride would wear a rosemary headpiece and the groom and wedding guests would all wear a sprig of rosemary, and from this association with weddings, rosemary evolved into a love charm. Newlywed couples would plant a branch of rosemary on their wedding day. If the branch grew, it was a good omen for the union and family.

Rosemary was used as a divinatory herb. Several herbs were grown in pots and assigned the name of a potential lover. They were left to grow and the plant that grew the strongest and fastest gave the answer. . It was believed that placing a sprig of rosemary under a pillow before sleep would repel nightmares, and if placed outside the home it would repel witches.

Somehow, the use of rosemary in the garden to repel witches turned into signification that the woman ruled the household in homes and gardens where rosemary grew abundantly. By the 16th century, men were known to rip up rosemary bushes to show that they, not their wives, ruled the roost. Rosemary grows very well in our garden, having to be controlled quite vigorously - but I'm sure there's no truth in the old folklore - I think it's more a case of having alkaline soil in a warm and dry part of the country! :))