Delicately Umbelliferous. Wild Angelica, Angelica sylvestris, Sloterplas, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
We went to look at the Sloterplas - Sloten Lake - in the west of Amsterdam; in fact we had a nice walk around that water which is about 2 metres below sea level and protected, of course, by dikes. There's a pleasant park more or less all around it with well-kept lawns but also wilder areas. And my favorite scraggly patches on water's edge and along ditches.
Here's delicate Wild Angelica, Angelica sylvestis. Named for the archangel St Michael it was thought in the Middle Ages to be an effective cure for all manner of illness.
I think its beautiful white flowers resemble lace. It is said that lace was first depicted by the Flemish 'primitive' painter Hans Memling (1430-1494) in 1485. Whether our Angelica helped sufferers of the deadly 'sweating sickness' - sudor anglicus - in England that same Summer and soon on the continent, I don't know. Undoubtedly though it was tried as a herbal remedy prescribed by many a medical florilegium.
For us it was too cold today either for sweating or to linger long...
Delicately Umbelliferous. Wild Angelica, Angelica sylvestris, Sloterplas, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
We went to look at the Sloterplas - Sloten Lake - in the west of Amsterdam; in fact we had a nice walk around that water which is about 2 metres below sea level and protected, of course, by dikes. There's a pleasant park more or less all around it with well-kept lawns but also wilder areas. And my favorite scraggly patches on water's edge and along ditches.
Here's delicate Wild Angelica, Angelica sylvestis. Named for the archangel St Michael it was thought in the Middle Ages to be an effective cure for all manner of illness.
I think its beautiful white flowers resemble lace. It is said that lace was first depicted by the Flemish 'primitive' painter Hans Memling (1430-1494) in 1485. Whether our Angelica helped sufferers of the deadly 'sweating sickness' - sudor anglicus - in England that same Summer and soon on the continent, I don't know. Undoubtedly though it was tried as a herbal remedy prescribed by many a medical florilegium.
For us it was too cold today either for sweating or to linger long...