Herb-paris, again

For the first time for ages I had a relatively free day, and though I should have spent it entering records and catching up with housework, the weather was so perfect that I went out to the Old Sulehay NR.

I visited the disused limestone quarry first, where the short turf was studded with tiny flowers of many colours - the pinks of stork's-bill and field madder, the whites of wild strawberry and sticky-mouse-ear, the blues of early forget-me-not and wall speedwell (each flower only a few millimetres across) and the yellows of miniature dandelions and small-flowered buttercup. I briefly spotted the first dingy and grizzled skippers on the wing, but they weren't settling at all.

As it became warmer I went into the shady woodland, the canopy now almost complete, shading the carpets of bluebells and ramsons. I was on a mission - a friend had told me that herb-paris lurks along one of the rides and I wanted to find it. Though I knew roughly where it was I couldn't remember exactly where, so it took a bit of pacing up and down before I managed to locate the colony - about thirty plants in perfect flowering condition.

The four broad, oval leaves of herb-paris, set in a cross, are quite distinctive. Rising from the middle, an upright stem bears a flower: a star of four narrow, yellow-green petals and four green sepals, topped by a dark berry (ovary) and a crown of eight golden stamens. The scientific and common names for herb-paris are derived from the Latin par, meaning pair, referring to the symmetry of the pairs of leaves and floral parts (not the city Paris, as has commonly been assumed and the reason why paris is sometimes capitalised in its common name) and quadrifolia meaning four leaves. 


With its whorl of four egg-shaped leaves, herb-paris is known as the 'herb of equality' because all of its parts are considered equal and harmonious. This symmetry appealed to medieval herbalists and herb-paris was used both in marriage rituals and to guard against witches.