Bittercress (Cardamine sp.)
Mar. 21st, 2010 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
melannen posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
common_natureThis post is part of the Fecundity Project, which is my resolution to post about something that is in flower or in seed once a week for a year. You can read other posts in the project at the fecundity project tag.
Fecundity Project 2: Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta.)
This is Cardamine hirsuta, or Hairy Bittercress, a common weed of lawns and other disturbed areas throughout Eurasia, North America, and most other places where humans have travelled. It's one of the earliest plants in bloom in the spring (and in mild winters will sometimes bloom as early as January) and spreads rapidly and quickly - the sort of gardeners who think a lawn with only one species in it is a good thing have a saying "Cardamine rhymes with enemy" because it's such a successful weed. (Cardamine doesn't rhyme with enemy, but the "e" on the the end is pronounced rather than silent, and the strongest accent is on the "a".) There are a few other Cardamine species names that describe very similar plants, but at least in most of North America, chances are very good it's C. hirsuta. Other cardamines also grow in weedy areas, all of them with the same basic low foliage and four-petaled white flowers of various sizes on long stalks, but it's C. hirsuta and relatives that live in mowed areas.
Common names in English include bittercress, lamb's cress, land's cress, spring cress, popweed, and shotweed. Popweed and Shotweed derive from the fact that the tiny seed capsules, appearing later in spring and summer, are spring-loaded and "pop" when touched. If you've ever walked through a weed field in the height of summer and and had imperceptibly small things bounce up around you when you brush by, it may be similar seed capsules. Cardamine, the genus name, is said to be from the same Greek word that gives us the name of the herb Cardamom, meaning "spicy cress", and the German "schaumkrauter" is more-or-less "foamy cress", which could refer either to the flowers or to spittlebugs. The "hairy" in both the English common name and the scientific name is not based on the leaves or stem actually being hairy - they aren't. I suspect it's because of the long, slender leaves that grow up around the flower stalks like hair, sometimes reaching an inch or more higher than the actual flower. They're slightly reflective on the ends, so that bittercress flowers in full sun sometimes seem to be surrounded by tiny sparklers.
The flowers themselves grow on tall stalks above bushy rosettes of small, round leaves. The "cress" in most of the common names is due to these leaves - cress in English plant names (crease in some dialects) almost always means a plant has greens that are edible when fresh, and this is the case with bittercress. The leaves can be picked right from the grass and eaten on the spot, the younger the better. Some modern books refer to these kinds of plants as "trail greens", because they can be picked and chewed while hiking to moisten the mouth or temporarily quell hunger. I can commend this from personal experiences - bittercress is too strongly flavored to make it the base of a salad (unless you *really* like bitter herbs, thus the name), but it's excellent to chew on as a snack when out-of-doors, or in moderation in a salad of mixed greens. It tastes mildly grassy at first, but then you get a strong bitter-y flavor, followed by spicy-sharp, and fresh bittercress in spring is the same juicy-crisp texture as fancy greens you'd get in a restaurant salad. (Standard warning: only eat wild plants if you're sure of the identification, and only eat fresh greens if you are fairly certain the area hasn't been sprayed with poisons or otherwise contaminated since the last rain.)
Bittercress, as an edible wild herb, gets a mention in the Anglo-saxon Charm of the Nine Herbs, a chant with pagan and Christian elements from the 10th century Lacnunga medical text, listing herbs which are good against poisons. Stune, the word used in the poem which is otherwise unattested, is correlated with the common name Lamb's Cress in the recipe for a salve given after the poem. Lamb's Cress usually means cardamine, though some scholars insist that lamb's-cress in the verse must really mean watercress, or lamb's lettuce, or some other more respectable green. (But as the charm contains other simple weedy edibles, some of which will probably show up in this project later, I suspect that's sheer prejudice.) The common names lamb's cress and spring cress both probably derive from the fact that bittercress is, at least in my area, one of the first edible greens to come up in the spring, so it makes sense that it would be called in a charm that includes other valuable wild edibles with no major medicinal uses.
Here are the relevant verses from the Nine Herbs Charm, in the original and a translation from heorot.dx:
More pictures of bittercress
Fecundity Project 2: Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta.)
This is Cardamine hirsuta, or Hairy Bittercress, a common weed of lawns and other disturbed areas throughout Eurasia, North America, and most other places where humans have travelled. It's one of the earliest plants in bloom in the spring (and in mild winters will sometimes bloom as early as January) and spreads rapidly and quickly - the sort of gardeners who think a lawn with only one species in it is a good thing have a saying "Cardamine rhymes with enemy" because it's such a successful weed. (Cardamine doesn't rhyme with enemy, but the "e" on the the end is pronounced rather than silent, and the strongest accent is on the "a".) There are a few other Cardamine species names that describe very similar plants, but at least in most of North America, chances are very good it's C. hirsuta. Other cardamines also grow in weedy areas, all of them with the same basic low foliage and four-petaled white flowers of various sizes on long stalks, but it's C. hirsuta and relatives that live in mowed areas.
Common names in English include bittercress, lamb's cress, land's cress, spring cress, popweed, and shotweed. Popweed and Shotweed derive from the fact that the tiny seed capsules, appearing later in spring and summer, are spring-loaded and "pop" when touched. If you've ever walked through a weed field in the height of summer and and had imperceptibly small things bounce up around you when you brush by, it may be similar seed capsules. Cardamine, the genus name, is said to be from the same Greek word that gives us the name of the herb Cardamom, meaning "spicy cress", and the German "schaumkrauter" is more-or-less "foamy cress", which could refer either to the flowers or to spittlebugs. The "hairy" in both the English common name and the scientific name is not based on the leaves or stem actually being hairy - they aren't. I suspect it's because of the long, slender leaves that grow up around the flower stalks like hair, sometimes reaching an inch or more higher than the actual flower. They're slightly reflective on the ends, so that bittercress flowers in full sun sometimes seem to be surrounded by tiny sparklers.
The flowers themselves grow on tall stalks above bushy rosettes of small, round leaves. The "cress" in most of the common names is due to these leaves - cress in English plant names (crease in some dialects) almost always means a plant has greens that are edible when fresh, and this is the case with bittercress. The leaves can be picked right from the grass and eaten on the spot, the younger the better. Some modern books refer to these kinds of plants as "trail greens", because they can be picked and chewed while hiking to moisten the mouth or temporarily quell hunger. I can commend this from personal experiences - bittercress is too strongly flavored to make it the base of a salad (unless you *really* like bitter herbs, thus the name), but it's excellent to chew on as a snack when out-of-doors, or in moderation in a salad of mixed greens. It tastes mildly grassy at first, but then you get a strong bitter-y flavor, followed by spicy-sharp, and fresh bittercress in spring is the same juicy-crisp texture as fancy greens you'd get in a restaurant salad. (Standard warning: only eat wild plants if you're sure of the identification, and only eat fresh greens if you are fairly certain the area hasn't been sprayed with poisons or otherwise contaminated since the last rain.)
Bittercress, as an edible wild herb, gets a mention in the Anglo-saxon Charm of the Nine Herbs, a chant with pagan and Christian elements from the 10th century Lacnunga medical text, listing herbs which are good against poisons. Stune, the word used in the poem which is otherwise unattested, is correlated with the common name Lamb's Cress in the recipe for a salve given after the poem. Lamb's Cress usually means cardamine, though some scholars insist that lamb's-cress in the verse must really mean watercress, or lamb's lettuce, or some other more respectable green. (But as the charm contains other simple weedy edibles, some of which will probably show up in this project later, I suspect that's sheer prejudice.) The common names lamb's cress and spring cress both probably derive from the fact that bittercress is, at least in my area, one of the first edible greens to come up in the spring, so it makes sense that it would be called in a charm that includes other valuable wild edibles with no major medicinal uses.
Here are the relevant verses from the Nine Herbs Charm, in the original and a translation from heorot.dx:
Stune hætte þeos wyrt, heo on stane geweox; Cress [?] this herb is called, it grew on a stone; stond heo wið attre, stunað heo wærce. it stands against poison, it attacks against pain.
Mucgcwyrt, wegbrade þe eastan open sy, lombescyrse, attorlaðan, mageðan, netelan, wudusuræppel, fille and finul, ealde sapan. Gewyrc ða wyrta to duste, mængc wiþ þa sapan and wiþ þæs æpples gor. Wyrc slypan of wætere and of axsan, genim finol, wyl on þære slyppan and beþe mid æggemongc, þonne he þa sealfe on do, ge ær ge æfter. Sing þæt galdor on æcre þara wyrta, III ær he hy wyrce and on þone æppel ealswa; ond singe þon men in þone muð and in þa earan buta and on ða wunde þæt ilce gealdor, ær he þa sealfe on do.
Mugwort, waybread [plantain] which has opened from the east, lamb's cress, attorlothe [betony?, black nightshade?], chamomile, nettle, wood sour apple, chervil and fennel, old soap; work the herbs into powder, mix with the soap and the apple's juice. Make a paste of water and of ash; take the fennel, boil in the paste and warm it with the mixture when he puts on the salve, and before and after. Sing that charm on each of the herbs thrice before he prepares them, and on the apple also, and sing into the mouth of the man and both the ears and on the wound that same charm before he puts on the salve.
More pictures of bittercress
