Angelica

Angelica is a tall biennial of the carrot family, Apiaceae, growing wild through the far north of Europe, from Russia and Scandinavia to Greenland, the Faroes and Iceland, always in damp ground near water. In its first year it makes only leaves; in its second a fluted stem rises as high as two and a half metres, carrying round heads of small greenish-yellow flowers. Grown as a vegetable and a medicine since the tenth century and taken up in Sámi cooking, it flavours gin and liqueurs such as Chartreuse and Bénédictine, and its stems are candied. It looks like several poisonous members of its family, so a wild plant must be identified with certainty. Northern European folklore held it a guard against contagion and enchantment. Grieve gives the belief that it blooms on the feast of Michael the Archangel and so keeps off evil spirits and witchcraft, and its old name, Root of the Holy Ghost; Anglo-Saxons wore the root on a string against spells, it shielded cattle from elf shot, Lapland poets were crowned with it, and the Cherokee and Delaware used it against evil spirits. Culpeper placed it under the Sun in Leo. In magic it goes into protection and exorcism incenses, is sprinkled round a house to keep evil out, and in a bath lifts curses and hexes; burning the root breaks a hex and consecrates ritual space.