Frothy creamy cymes with a heavy almond scent above pinnate leaves whose toothed leaflets are whitish and downy beneath
Meadowsweet — Filipendula ulmaria.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Meadowsweet
Flowers June to September
Filipendula ulmaria — Rosaceae
Meadowsweet is the creamy, almond-scented froth of damp meadows, ditches and wet woodland, a rose relative whose frothy cymes stand over dark, elm-like pinnate leaves. It was the great strewing herb of medieval halls and the flavouring of mead. It also matters to pharmacy: salicylic acid was isolated from it, and aspirin takes the "spir" in its name from Spiraea, the genus meadowsweet used to belong to.
How to spot them
- ▸Dense, irregular, frothy cymes of tiny creamy-white five-petalled flowers with projecting stamens
- ▸Sweet, heavy almond or marzipan scent from the flowers; the crushed leaves smell antiseptic
- ▸Pinnate leaves with two to five pairs of toothed, elm-like leaflets, dark green above, downy and whitish beneath
- ▸Reddish, ridged stems to about 1.2 m in wet ground: marshes, fens, ditches, riverbanks and wet woods
- ▸Fruiting heads of small twisted, spirally arranged carpels
How to know it
Salicylic acid was isolated from this plant, and the 'spir' in aspirin comes from the genus it used to be placed in
Meadowsweet — formerly Spiraea ulmaria; hence a-spir-in.
The chief strewing herb of medieval floors, and the flavouring that gave mead its taste
Meadowsweet — the name is mead-sweet, not meadow-sweet.
Gerard wrote that its smell 'makes the heart merrie'; it is said to have been Elizabeth I's favourite strewing herb
Meadowsweet.
A rose-family plant of wet ground whose genus name means 'hanging threads', from the root tubers of a relative
Meadowsweet — Filipendula, from filum and pendulus.
Its epithet means 'elm-like', for the shape and texture of its leaflets
Filipendula ulmaria — meadowsweet.
Called queen of the meadow and bridewort, from its use in bridal garlands
Meadowsweet.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Rosaceae; Filipendula ulmaria, formerly Spiraea ulmaria
- •The name is from Anglo-Saxon medu-swete, mead-sweetener, not from meadow, although it grows in damp meadows
- •Salicylic acid was obtained from meadowsweet flower buds in the 1830s; Bayer's acetylsalicylic acid was named aspirin, the 'spir' from Spiraea
- •Filipendula means 'hanging threads', describing the tubers strung along the roots of the related dropwort, Filipendula vulgaris
- •ulmaria means elm-like, for the leaflets
- •A traditional strewing herb; John Gerard's Herball praises its scent, and it is often said to have been Elizabeth I's favourite for the floor
- •Other names include bridewort, queen of the meadow, meadwort and lady of the meadow
- •Yields a black dye from the roots and a yellow one from the flowers; the flowers are still used to flavour drinks and jellies
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Sources
- Woodland Trust — Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria)
- The Wildlife Trusts — Meadowsweet