Plant Overview
The difficult to find double flowered form of our native meadowsweet. Creamy-white double flowers from June into August.
Suitable for cut flowers.
Height and spread: 60 x 45 cm
Meadowsweet is known in Yorkshire as Courtship and Matrimony because the sweet smell of the flowers contrasts with the sharper smell of the crushed leaves.
The name Filipendula comes from the Latin ‘filum', meaning thread and ‘pendulus’, meaning drooping.
Common name: Double Meadowsweet
History & Tradition
Meadowsweet is one of the strewing herbs, which were put on the stone floors of houses so that the scent emitted when trodden on would cheer the heart. It would also mask the more unpleasant scent which may be present. It was also strewn on church flowers at weddings, partly for the scent, but also because it was believed it would promote love.
The Druids considered it a sacred herb. It was used to flavour beer and other drinks before the use of hops became widespread.
Those who inhale the plant's scent are supposedly granted the gift of second sight and will be able to converse with faeries.
Gerards Herbal (1597) reports that "the floures boiled in wine and drunke, do make the heart merrie".
Photo: Kor!An (Андрей Корзун), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
