Avens

Wood avens, or herb bennet, is a downy perennial of the rose family that grows in shady woodland edges, hedgerows and waysides across temperate Eurasia, and has been introduced to North America. Its wiry stems reach up to sixty centimetres and bear small flowers of five bright yellow petals, followed by bristling seed heads whose hooks catch in the fur of passing animals. Freshly dug, the root smells of cloves, because it holds eugenol, the compound found in the spice; it seasoned soups and flavoured ale, was laid among linen to keep moths away, and old physicians named a day in late March for lifting it, when its scent was strongest. Herb bennet is a worn-down form of the Latin herba benedicta, the blessed herb. Medieval Christians saw the Trinity in its three-part leaves and the Five Wounds in its five petals, and thirteenth-century masons carved it on the capitals of columns. Folk belief held that the root put evil spirits and the Devil to flight, so people wore it as an amulet against venomous creatures and mad dogs and hung over doorways. Culpeper set it under Jupiter. Magically, it goes into incenses for exorcism, scattered around a room to cleanse it, used in purification rites and love charms, and kept for abundance and protection.