Ground Ivy

Ground ivy is a low, creeping perennial of the family Labiatae and one of the commonest plants of hedge banks and waste ground throughout Great Britain, where it favours sun. Its long, square, unbranched stems trail over the soil and root as they go, carrying pairs of stalked, kidney-shaped, dark green leaves with rounded teeth, softly downy and paler and gland-dotted beneath. From April through much of the summer and autumn, small two-lipped flowers of bright purplish blue, spotted white on the lower lip, sit in threes and fours where the upper leaves meet the stem. The plant stays green all year, and its foliage, which resembles true ivy's, gave it its common name. Every part smells balsamic and tastes bitter and aromatic. Before hops came into use, the Saxons steeped the leaves in hot ale to clear it and to improve its flavour and keeping, which earned it the names alehoof and tunhoof, and it stayed in use for brewing until the reign of Henry VIII; the name gill is traced to the French guiller, to ferment beer. Cattle mostly leave it alone. A cooling drink called gill tea was made from it in the countryside, and it was once one of the cries of London. Northcote records a Tyrolean bunch of rue, broom, maidenhair, agrimony and ground ivy that let its wearer see witches, and its place among the herbs given over to the Devil, whose candlestick it was called.