Plant-lore Archive
– collecting traditional uses and folklore of plants

Please share your memories and send them to:
roy@plant-lore.com

Plant-lore Archive has grown from the Folklore Society’s ‘Survey of Unlucky Flowers’ which was conducted in the early 1980s.  It currently holds some 10,300 items of information from almost 4,230 contributors, and a large number of press-cuttings, off-prints, photographs, postcards and other material.  The Archive covers all aspects of the folklore and traditional uses of plants, including fungi and other organisms traditionally studied by botanists.  Although previously published material is of interest, the emphasis is on contemporary (i.e. current and remembered) beliefs and practices.

Therefore information is sought concerning:

.  Traditional beliefs concerning plants (for example, the belief that certain flowers cause bad luck if taken indoors)

.  Local names of plants

.  Herbal remedies

.   Plants and plant materials used in traditional customs and religious festivals

.  Sayings, riddles, tales and legends concerning plants

.  Traditional times for sowing and harvesting crops, and practices associated with the cultivation of plants

.  Plants used for foretelling the future

.  Children’s games and pastimes which use plants

.  Wild plants gathered for food

.  Other traditional uses of plants

Information from all parts of the British Isles, ethnic groups settled in the British Isles, and comparative material from overseas is welcome, no matter how widespread and well-known you consider it to be. 

This website contains images of most of the plants mentioned on it, but if users require additional images they are advised to consult a wild flower identification book (not the internet where there are far too many incorrectly identified images).  As different people prefer different books – some prefer photographs, others prefer line-drawings – it’s difficult to know which book/s to recommend, so it’s probably best to visit a bookshop, browse, and see which one appeals most to you.  It might also be useful to consult Andrew Branson’s article ‘What field guide should I buy? in BSBI News 145: 39-41 (September 2020), which can be found on the Botanical Society of Britain an Ireland’s website, http://bsbi.org.

Please send any information and other correspondence using this website, to roy@plant-lore.com or Roy Vickery, 9 Terrapin Court, Terrapin Road, London, SW17 8QW.

Images: upper, compiler, Roy Vickery, at Chinese New Year celebrations, Soho, London, February 2022, © Nicky Nicoll;  lower, with hybrid between Turkey oak (Quercus cerris) and evergreen oak (Q. ilex), Tooting Common, London Borough of Wandsworth, December 2014, © Carlos Bruzon.

Updated 1 June 2026.