St. John’s Wort
A plant that saves its brightest gold for the longest days. It comes up in the open ground where the light falls hardest, and by the solstice it blooms.
Field Notes
Dispatches from the grounds, written as the seasons turn — what’s blooming, what’s been harvested, what the stillroom is steeping, and what the residents have been up to. The forest moves faster than a shop page can; this is where to follow it.
Yarrow
It stands in the dry open ground on a wiry stem, lifts a flat white crown of a hundred small flowers over a fringe of leaves cut so fine they look like feathers.
Self-Heal
Prunella is a patient plant, and a long one. It greens up early and low, and the purple comes on through June and holds clear across high summer.
Plantain
The herb that draws to the surface and lifts away what should not be lodged within: the splinter and the thorn, the sting and the venom of the bite.
Arnica
The first true gold the forest gives. It opens as small suns on tall stems, lifted over a low nest of heart-shaped leaves.