Plantlore Matters
Herbal Folklore: Plantlore Matters!
Herbal folklore and plant medicine
Our relationship with plants, and how we use them to heal and nourish our bodies, minds and relationships, has always been closely linked with folklore. Folklore grows and changes as communities evolve. It reflects the lives of the people who create it, following their movements across landscapes and adapting with each generation.
Plants have always had a place in our fairy tales, hidden in the potions and charms that shape their magic. In the French story Petrosinella — an early version of Rapunzel — a pregnant woman longs for parsley (Petroselinum crispum), a herb believed to bring on labour when used medicinally. Another plant from these tales is the rapunzel (Campanula rapunculus), a blue flower prized for the nourishment found in its roots.
Plants also play an integral part in our mythologies. In Scottish lore, the Cailleach renews her strength with an infusion of lady’s mantle (Alchemilla vulgaris). In Irish legend, the phantom queen Morrígan gives meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) to the hero Cúchulainn to ease his fevers.
Herblore also weaves its way through our old sayings and rhymes. “Nettle in, dock out; dock rubs nettle out” — in one form or another — was once taught to children across the British Isles as a simple remedy for nettle stings.
Pulling daisy petals to ask “loves me, loves me not,” or searching for lucky four-leaf clovers, are familiar memories for many of us. These simple childhood games often hide older patterns of meaning and forms of healing. Think of the childhood rumour that picking dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) would make you wet the bed. The plant even carries the folk name “wet-the-bed.” While a gentle touch won’t bring about such mischief, dandelions are rich in potassium and can act as a mild diuretic when eaten or brewed as a tea — a reminder of how folklore often reflects a plant’s real medicinal qualities.
Snippets of knowledge rest in these simple, easily remembered pieces. They offer just enough herbal wisdom for people to explore plants safely, to build a lasting connection with them, or to let curiosity take root. And they do all this without the scientific complexity that might lose the everyday reader. These ancient ways of sharing knowledge have endured despite the vast information available online. They keep a special rhythm that children understand instantly and that stays with us, even as our memories shift with the passing years.
Storytelling and herbal folklore
Folklore has a special role to play in our culture. It carries knowledge, social history and tradition in a form that is easy to remember and easy to use. A project led by the Scottish Poetry Library called Living Voices, worked with people in care homes, guiding care workers and librarians in using stories, poetry and songs with older adults, many of whom were experiencing memory loss. It was found that almost everyone still remembered these old sayings and childhood stories long after other memories had faded.
The beauty and gentle magic of plant lore has captivated herbalists and storytellers for millennia. Early Egyptian texts describe the Bennu, a phoenix-like bird, and the plants linked to its cycle of renewal. Yet plant lore, like any living story, is never fixed; it is reshaped and retold, growing with each generation. Its enduring appeal allows us to follow a trail through history and linger with writers of different eras, each offering a glimpse into how the plants of their world were understood and used.
Research into one of the twentieth century’s most popular folklore chroniclers, Margaret Baker (b. 1928), revealed that much of the plant lore she recorded came from correspondence. She put out requests through societies and organisations with an interest in plants, and members responded by sharing their remembered traditions, rhymes and stories. She then curated these contributions with great care. The Herb Society is among those she acknowledges, and her books, Discovering the Folklore of Plants and Gardener’s Folklore: The Ancient Secrets for Gardening Magic, still offer a valuable glimpse of plant lore as it existed before the internet — a time when many home herbalists and practitioners worked with inherited knowledge and well-tested ways.
The tradition of collecting and curating plant lore continued in Baker’s wake with the brilliant work of botanist and folklorist Roy Vickery being amongst the best known and most comprehensive. It is safe to say that plant lore still remains a vital and poetic way of sharing the way we work with plants and our knowledge of herbal practices.
Thank you to Amanda Edmiston, herbalist, storyteller and Ambassador for The Herb Society, for writing this section.
References
Baker, Margaret. (1969) Discovering the Folklore of Plants. Shire Publications.
Baker, Margaret. (1978) Gardener’s Folklore: The ancient secrets for gardening magic. (republished 2024)
Basile, Giambattista. (1634) ‘Petrosinella’, in The Tale of Tales.
Vickery, Roy. (2025) Plant-Lore: Collecting the folklore and uses of plants. Available at: https://www.plant-lore.com/ (Plantlore developed by Roy Vickery building on a survey conducted by The Folklore Society is a constantly developing and useful web archive of collected memories and traditions)