'Purpurea' Bugle Flower;
or, Purple Carpet Bugleweed
"Unmake & remake me. That star
And that flower & that flower
And living mouth & living mouth all
One smouldering annihilation."
-The Green Wolf,
by Ted Hughes
(1930-1998)
by Ted Hughes
(1930-1998)
Ajuga reptans atropurpurea or Bugle Purpurea is an old garden standard with bronzy-purple foliage & smallish purple flowers.
The names 'Purpurea' & 'Atropurpurea' are interchangeable & used of many cultivar strains, but original applied to a smallish-flowered wild form with naturally purple-hued leaves. The stuff that has naturalized across the street from us seems either to be a wildflower rather than cultivar (because the flowers are not "improved" for size), or at least to have reverted.
We never planted this bugleweed in our garden, but it has self-seeded along our street margin from the alley across the street, where it covers an extensive neglected area. It's not difficult for us to control & now & then I let it remain. The first photo above shows it in March on our own roadside, springing up in a grassy area. The second photo shows more of it across the street.This may have been naturalized in that alley for decades for all I know. Today's cultivated forms all have much larger flower spikes. But this humbler wild form has genuine charm & I do not regard it as at all a nuisance. It does not seem at all aggressive about self-seeding though it does so a little. But wherever it is permitted to remain, it can become rampant via rhizomitous spread.
This aromatic English wildflower is an important source of nectar for butterflies, moths, & bees, growing at woodland edges & in scruffy meadows. In American gardens it is visited by hummingbirds. The wild form can clump to a foot high including the upright inflouresence, but is usually shorter.
It's in full flower in our neighborhood by late March & wholeheartedly by April. Typically it starts flowering before fresh spring leaves have begun. It blooms at least until June, after which the leaves are attractive on their own.
The names Gypsyweed or Gipsywort associated ajuga with witchcraft & pagan beliefs. According to an old superstition, to bring bugleweed into the house would result in a house fire. This belief may be reflected in the folk-name Green Wolf's Foot. In such places as medieval Normandy, as reported by Sir James Frazer, the Brotherhood of the Green Wolf would in each summer elect a leader, who would be called the Green Wolf & wear a long green jacket & green conical hat to preside over midsummer activities.
One of the primary duties of the Green Wolf was to oversee a nighttime bonfire around which a fertility dance was mummed by a young man & young woman bedecked in flowers, while sacred bells, entrusted to the season's Green Wolf, were madly rung. At dawn after a night of fun, the male mummer was taken & thrown on the cooled ashes of the burnt-out bonfire, & by right of this initiation would be automatically elected Green Wolf the following year. Frazer was of the opinion that this reflected an earlier time when a Green Man type "King of Spring" really was burned alive.
Yet another folk-name for ajuga, Baby's Rattle, refers to a toy that resembled the inflouresence, but perhaps also recalling the bells rung by the summer-elected Green Wolf; & one more folk-name, Baby's Shoes, has the same underlying motivation as Green Wolf's Foot.
In some rural regions this Midsummer bonefire festival lingered to the start of the Victorian era. Such horror films as Wickerman build on the Christian horror that all pagan bonfire rituals are of course malignant. The names Green Wolf's Foot & Green Archangel suggest that ajuga was once associated with Green Man worship, a sort of Celtic Pan. Such an association would quite naturally be demonized by some christians, hence also the folk-name or Dead Men's Bellows. The flower heads apparently resembled a wand full of bells, or some type of fireplace bellows, in the folk imagination.
Another belief associates ajuga & veronica with Paul the Apostle, as both plants are sometimes called Paul's Betony. The name came about due to a longstanding misunderstanding of an old name initially for spike-flowered species of veronica. It was also known as Betonica Pauli, but this actually referred to a 7th Century, Paul of Aegina.
It was alternatively called St. Lawrence Plant, after the patron of Catholic deacons, because put to death alongside a number of deacons in Rome during the rule of Emperor Valerian
Additional folk-names Ashagee, Carpenter's Herb, Horse & Hound, Middle Comfrey, Middle Confound, Sicklewort, Thunder & Lightning, Water Bugle or Water Horehound, Woodbetony. Some of its names assume medicinal properties, as ajuga was believed to be a poultice for bleeding disorders, infected soars, consumption (tuberculosis), & has been regarded as an aid to the knitting of broken bones.
Traditionally it was harvested in spring in full flower, & the leaves & flowers together dried for later use. It was generally used topically, sometimes with its essential oils prepared in an ointment, but was also brewed as a tea to treat alcoholism, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, & internal bleeding or battle injuries; & it was gargled for soar throat.
Most of the alleged medicinal values have no convincing evidence to back them up, but some species of ajuga have been proven to possess analgesic properties which might indeed relieve pain with topical application or soar throat gargling. Studies to find out if there is really any value as a heart remedy or other major illnesses are not as hopeful, though herbalists & homeopothists even so persist in prescribing it for anything & everything superstitious marks are eager to believe it'll fix.
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Ajuga reptens 'Pink Spire'
Ajuga reptens 'Pink Spire'