A blessing in disguise

With its messy, lopsided leaves and tiny yellow flowers, wood avens would never win a beauty contest, but this unprepossessing plant has a rich spiritual history and even some surprisingly snuggly qualities

- John Wright

I HAVE always harboured a fondness for wood avens; it is an old friend that accompanies me on many of my walks and has taken up residence in my garden. However, when I told a botanist friend that I intended to write its story, he said: ‘Why wood avens? It is the most boring plant in the country.’ I was not entirely surprised by this response. Wood avens is the Rich Tea biscuit of the plant world, common, a little dull perhaps, but comforting. It is no chocolate Hobnob. Frankly, it does itself no favours, with its untidy and lopsided leaves and plain, five-petalled yellow flowers that are both sparse and too small for a plant that can reach 2ft in height. Yet, as I told my friend, no living thing is boring and everything has its story. He had to agree.

I do have one problem with wood avens, however—it has another accepted and familiar common name, herb bennet. This has caused some confusion in your correspondent’s mind, to the point that I can seldom remember either. As it happens, diminishingly few organisms

‘Herb bennet’ is similarly direct, meaning Herba Benedicta, or ‘blessed herb’, suggesting spiritual links for