Yellow Spit

 

You'd think this was a weed, growing behind the lattice that surrounds the lower part of our porch and out by the side of the driveway.  At this point in my gardening journey one plant looks like another and I can’t tell a weed from a prized perennial.  She seems to love the shade and just grows without interference or tending from me.  I pay no mind to this invasive little guy because of her cheery yellow color.  As yellow as a sweet lemon on a summer day.  She closes up at night and during the day when rain is near.  Kind of like me. Turns out she’s a member of the poppy family with tuber roots that look like a hemorrhoid. Thankfully I can't relate to that! My PictureThis app for my iPhone, which I am obsessed with, tells me this is the Greater Celandine or Cockfoot or Kenningwort or Devil’s Milk or Wartwort or Cheese Cup, etc etc, etc. But my favorite name for it is Yellow Spit.  Here we go again with ten thousand names for one little weed-like plant.  Used in some medicinal preps it can help a toothache, gallstones and dyspepsia.  Non-native to my surroundings, it was actually introduced to New England for that very reason.   Mystics would tell that it cures depression and promotes happiness. Put it on your pillow and you dream of the future.  Put it in a red bag and hang it from your neck if you are a witch and want to avoid detection.  Plant it around your house and it will deter law enforcement and tax collectors and aid in your escape should you become the object of such.  Who knew that little sunshine-colored weed that sleeps at night and warns of rain would allow my husband and I to escape the tax man.  If not dried or cooked, its tinctures are actually toxic, so beware. Apparently the Iroquois gave infusions of it to pigs that drooled. The best fact I found was that this delicate little ray of sunshine symbolizes 'Joy to come."  I think I'll be keeping this guy around. And use on the rare occasion I or my husband start drooling or have trouble digesting that spicy wood-fired pizza my he made the night before.  And if I’m depressed, which is a tricky feeling these days of enduring pandemics, wars on the horizon and death which feels so near and far away, all I need to do is head out to my yard and smile. Smile at that little yellow bloom gently swaying in the breeze.  Protect the witches and cure my depression, ease my aching tooth and give cure to gallstones, should they ever appear.  Oh Greater Celandine, you little relative of the poppy, welcome to our home.  I just might put you on my pillow tonight. Let dreams of Yellow Spit and drooling pigs, and the tax man chasing a witch he cannot see, delight my night-time reverie.