![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Allergy day
Sep. 10th, 2008 08:28 pmEverywhere you look in the greener parts of the city, there are green weeds with green flowers. I don't know why they bloom at this time of the year, but I'm sure there's an evolutionary reason for it. Green flowers mean that the plant has decided not to invite flies, bees, butterflies, moths, or beetles. No need for pretty colors or sweet aromas, they just need a gust of wind to push their pollen to the next plant's female organs. The most notorious of the green flowered plants is ragweed. All that pollen moving through the air makes life difficult on those of us allergic to that particular alien protein.
Today I had to shoulder my way through a stand of mugwort that was easily a foot taller than I am. As the stalks bent, a visible cloud of pollen erupted into my personal space, and the personal spaces of my head. Suddenly my tongue felt much too large and dry to belong in my mouth. My usual allergic sneezing, charming in its way, was joined by what sounded like a smoker's cough. These symptoms constituted an elevated level of suffering that I haven't felt from pollen before. Soon I was finding some Benadryl and dry-swallowing it. Talk about a cure that's almost worse than the disease. You have to say one thing about diphenhydramine HCl: It prevents lethal anaphylaxis. Beyond that, it's a good tranquilizer, but I won't take it unless I'm on the verge of the verge of death.
After work I laid down for a minute and woke up an hour later, feeling like I had the flu. Alexis even made me chicken soup for dinner. I'm about to go back to bed for the night, and I'll hopefully feel better tomorrow. I'll take some Claritin, and I'll avoid the green flowers.
Today I had to shoulder my way through a stand of mugwort that was easily a foot taller than I am. As the stalks bent, a visible cloud of pollen erupted into my personal space, and the personal spaces of my head. Suddenly my tongue felt much too large and dry to belong in my mouth. My usual allergic sneezing, charming in its way, was joined by what sounded like a smoker's cough. These symptoms constituted an elevated level of suffering that I haven't felt from pollen before. Soon I was finding some Benadryl and dry-swallowing it. Talk about a cure that's almost worse than the disease. You have to say one thing about diphenhydramine HCl: It prevents lethal anaphylaxis. Beyond that, it's a good tranquilizer, but I won't take it unless I'm on the verge of the verge of death.
After work I laid down for a minute and woke up an hour later, feeling like I had the flu. Alexis even made me chicken soup for dinner. I'm about to go back to bed for the night, and I'll hopefully feel better tomorrow. I'll take some Claritin, and I'll avoid the green flowers.
Mugwort in a construction site between North Station and the highway.
Burdock towers over visitors to the Riverway in Boston (Phragmites towers over the burdock).
Urban species #225: Mugwort Artemesia vulgaris
Urban species #226: Burdock Arctium lappa
Mugwort and burdock are tall weeds that are often found in the city, and which have long histories of herbal use, and funny-sounding names. They are both Eurasian, and have probably grown along the edges of human settlements for thousands of years.
Mugwort is a rangy, pale green, shrublike plant, somewhat resembling ragweed. Its name apparently refers to its use as an insect repellant, rather than as a beer flavoring. ("Mug" here is a corruption of an Old English word for insect, the root of "midge," or "moth" and "wort" means essentially, "herb.") It sprouts up in fields and along roads in the city, becoming the dominant plant in many places. It is happy to grow in pavement cracks and at construction sites, and will often grow where no other plant seems to be able.
Mugwort has a rich history of use, including medicine, flavoring, and magic. People have long found that this exceedingly common plant is good to make tea with, to smoke, to induce menses or pleasant dreams, to ward off danger or moths, to stuff a goose with, and so on. Its close relative, wormwood (A. absinthium) is famous as an ingredient in absinthe. In the Ukraine, the word for mugwort has become an important place name: Chernobyl.
Burdock is named for its fruit; burs (or burrs) are seedcases covered in spines that stick to hair or clothing. This method of seed dispersal can be very effective, as shown by the abundance of this plant. It's a quite large weed, growing in unmowed areas of the city. Its basal rosette (the first of its foliage to grow; the more or less round arrangement of bottom leaves) consists of huge, rough, rhubarb-like leaves. After a while, the plant sends a tall stalk up through the middle of the rosette, often six feet or more. Purple, or sometimes white, thistle-like flowers form on the plant, which then develop into the green, then brown, spiky fruit.
Burdock is well-known to contemporary herbalists. It's very important in Asian traditional medicine in particular, and is also used in some Asian cuisine. I was amused to find homely nubs of burdock root selling for several dollars a pound in a gourmet market. The huge taproot can be two feet long, as those who have tried to remove this weed can attest. I have also encountered small gardens of burdock carefully tended at the edge of Ringer Park in Allston.
( Read more... )
