Great & Tall

Two common flowering plants for you today and ones which are rather easy to find around these parts.  Firstly, the Tall Melilot (Melilotis altissimus).  Another member of the Pea family, they sometimes go by the name of Sweet Clover and are found all over Europe, Asia and parts of North Africa.  It is used in some parts of the world as a green manure to help soil nitrogen levels.

Culpepper says of Melilot... "Melilot, boiled in wine, and applied, mollifies all hard tumours and inflammations that happen in the eyes, or other parts of the body, and sometimes the yolk of a roasted egg, or fine flour, or poppy seed, or endive, is added unto it. It helps the spreading ulcers in the head". Very useful and very pretty.

Secondly, the Greater Knapweed (Centaurea scabiosa).  A very useful plant for the feeding of many different caterpillar species, it is also very pretty and wouldn't look out of place in a garden border.

Culpepper waxes lyrical about this too, saying... "Knapweed helps to stay fluxes, both of blood at the mouth or nose, or other outward parts, and those veins that are inwardly broken, or inward wounds, as also the fluxes of the belly; it stays distillation of thin and sharp humours from the head upon the stomach and lungs; it is good for those that are bruised by any fall, blows or otherwise, and is profitable for those that are bursten, and have ruptures".  So, that's all OK!