In 1736, a Norfolk landowner named Robert Marsham began writing down when things happened on his estate near Norwich. The first snowdrop. The first cuckoo.

It is a Tuesday morning in October, and the 7.42 is full of people who should be at home. Somewhere between the third sniff and

For a plant now sold as a gentle bedtime tea, skullcap had an alarming first career. American herbalists in the late eighteenth century used it

In ancient Greece, students preparing for exams wove rosemary into their hair. They wore sprigs of it in garlands while they studied, convinced that the

There is a moment in The Winter’s Tale, halfway through the fourth act, when Shakespeare’s Perdita hands out flowers at a sheep-shearing festival. Hot lavender,

Here is a genuine curiosity, and it is worth sitting with for a moment before anything else is said. Valerian is native to Britain. It

In the winter of 1349, as the Black Death moved north through England, a pound of ginger cost roughly the same as a sheep. By

Somewhere between the M4 and the A303, if you take the right minor road at the right time of year, you will find yourself driving

There is a plant growing on damp roadsides, river margins, and neglected patches of waste ground across Britain right now that nobody talks about. It

In the mythology surrounding this plant, Helen of Troy wept, and where her tears fell elecampane sprang from the earth. The Romans named the species

Open almost any British kitchen cupboard and you will find it. A small jar, probably purchased years ago, the label faded, the contents somewhere between

In the sixteenth century, John Gerard recorded an observation about goldenrod that has not aged well. The herb, he noted, was being imported into London