Heartsease (Viola tricolour)
Flowers: April to September. Height: 12cm (5in).
The cheerful little blooms can appear in a variety of colours and other names include Johnny-jump-up, Wild Pansy and Love-lies-bleeding and it is associated with the love of Christ. Early Christians saw the three coloured petals as a symbol of the Holy Trinity while King Arthur and his knights at the round table believed the lines on the petals foretold their future. Heartsease features as a love-charm in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, “the juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid, will make a man or woman madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees.”
Medicinal: A good blood purifier, infusions of the flowers were used for many conditions including for lung inflammation, epilepsy, eczema and other skin diseases, cleansing and for pain relief. It was made into syrup to treat coughs and to treat fevers and Culpeper thought it “excellently good for the convulsions in children, as also for the falling sickness”.
Culinary: Young buds and leaves were used in soup and the flowers in salads.
Magic & Myth: Heartsease is rich in folklore and, in both Roman and Greek mythology, it is associated with love. In medieval times, the plant was used for its potency in love charms.
Doctrine of Signatures: The upper portion of the flowers was thought to resemble the upper lobes of the heart, so it was used for all problems related to the heart including melancholy and heartache.
