According to a report in the London Evening Standard of Friday 8 June 2018,  the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, was presented ‘with the traditional gift of sweetgrass’ when she arrived in Canada for the G7 summit.  Known as holy grass in Britain, sweetgrass (Anthoxanthum nitens, formerly known as Hierochloe odorata) is a healing herb used by First Nation indigenous peoples, and is ‘said to offer protection and cleanse “negative energy” and its considered sacred’.

Image:  W.H. Fitch & W.G. Smith, Illustrations of the British Flora, ed. 5, 1949.

Revised 22 September 2023.