Goldenrod

Goldenrods are clump-forming plants of the daisy family with lance-shaped leaves and knotty rhizomes, found across Europe, central Asia and North America. The European goldenrod, the only one of more than eighty species native to Britain, stands two to three feet tall by Grieve's account and up to seven by Kynes's, with wand-like clusters of tiny golden flowers on upright stems; the sweet goldenrod is smaller, and its leaves smell of anise when crushed. The genus name comes from the Latin for making whole, for the plant is known as a wound herb, and it went into the Swiss wound-drink faltrank. Germans called it Heidnisch Wundkraut, pagan woundwort, which Kynes suggests may point to an old link with witchcraft; it served as a charm against many ailments. In England its long stems were used as divining rods to find water and buried gold and silver, and in similar legends a piece carried in the pocket was said to lead to hidden treasure. Cunningham writes that a goldenrod flower held in the hand nods towards lost things or buried treasure, that wearing a piece of it shows you your future love the next day, and that goldenrod springing up suddenly by the door foretells unexpected good fortune for the household. Not everyone welcomed it: in parts of England it was thought unlucky to grow in the garden or bring indoors.