Wippisiwok
Christopher said this patch of plants popped up after he cleared and burned brush on the hill where we stood. Mary says it’s a weed and wants it cut down. To me it’s a plant with a story, an herb! I squeeze the leaves and offer up a subtle, yet sharp aromatic trace, a whiff that jerks your head back slightly while your eyes shut. Erechtites, I proclaim. It takes a while for my aging brain to conjure up the common name, fireweed. Just another plant that offers little to our modern minds beyond another shade of green.
Such brief encounters are commonplace. My curiosity is piqued, and I wonder what obsessive search for details might follow. Rediscovering fireweed in secret treasure troves on the internet burns the better part of an afternoon. Ah yes, Erechtites hieraciifolius or Erechthites hieracifolia—pre-spellcheck botanists were obviously confused, as is my spell-checking software. My condolences to editors. It’s a sunflower family member, though you’d never guess that because in full bloom, lacking symmetrically radial colorful petals, it looks like it’s in-bud while fully in flower.
Why is it called fireweed or American burnweed? Because this gangly annual populates land for a year or two after a clear cut or fire, then it’s silky parachute-floated seeds move it to the next suitable location. Adapted to the wind it conquered all of its native North America and the world beyond.
Opinions on value differ. In Asia the young tender foliage is eaten raw or cooked. Another name, pilewort, describes use for hemorrhoids, with ointment listed in the 1888 Parke Davis & Company catalog. In 1849, Ohio physician John M. Bigelow noted, “Some diplomatized Quack… is lauding this plant as an infalible specific in cholera. It is a very common and diasagreeable weed.”
The Cree called it whipsiwog, derived from the Algonquin wippisiwok “they are hollow” referring to the stems.* Introduced to Europe in 1689, an early description comes in Paul Hermann’s 1705 Paradisus batabus innumeris exoticis curiosis herbis & rarioribus plantis. You can almost guess that my artificially intelligent friend, Google, translates that to “Paradise bathes innumerable exotic herbs and rare plants.”
And for me, that only begins an afternoon of pleasure reading bathed in a focus on wippisiwok.
*W. R. Gerard. Plant Names of Indian Origin — V. Garden and Forest. July 29, 1896, No. 440, p. 303.