Plant-Lore

Collecting the folklore and uses of plants

Winter heliotrope

1.  In Scandinavia they planted winter heliotrope near beehives, so that bees would benefit from the nectar and pollen before most other plants were in flower [Bristol, January 2017].

2.  Names learnt in St Austell, Cornwall, when I was a young child (let’s say about 1989):
Petasites fragrans, winter heliotrope – cherry-pie [e-mail, January 2013].

Images: main, Wells, Somerset, January 2014; inset Nunhead Cemetery, London Borough of Southwark, January 2022.