Goat's Rue

Goat's rue is a hardy, freely flowering perennial of the pea family, native to parts of Europe, western Asia and northern Africa and now naturalised across much of the temperate world. Branched stems about three feet tall carry leaves made of six to eight pairs of bright green, lance-shaped leaflets and an odd one at the tip, and in summer clusters of small lilac, purplish or white flowers that turn into narrow pods. It has no scent until bruised, when it gives off an unpleasant smell, which Grieve thinks may explain the name; Wikipedia traces the English name instead to the Latin Ruta capraria of 1554, when the plant was thought kin to common rue. It has been grown for fodder, for ornament, for bees and as green manure, but brought to Utah in 1891 as a forage crop it escaped and is now a listed noxious weed in the United States. Old herbals used it against fevers and the plague, earning it the German name Pestilenzkraut, as well as for worms and snakebite, and in 1873 it was reported to raise the milk yield of cows. Its galegine, which lowers blood sugar, led in time to the diabetes drug metformin. Cunningham uses it in healing rituals.