Paladina
old woman of the roads
- Time of past OR future Camino
- CF, primitivo & del norte (2017); VdlP/Sanabres, ingles etc (2018), Mozarabe etc (2019), tbc (2020)
In Idle Days in Patagonia (1893) the naturalist W. H. Hudson devotes the final chapter to a discussion of the lemon yellow evening primrose. From his description it is apparent that he is referring to the fragrant variety (oenothera stricta) that many pilgrims will have observed on the Camino. But what interested me in particular was his claim that it is known by the ‘quaint native name of St James of the night’. The only confirmation I have found comes from a Chilean website, where one of its common names is given as Don Diego de la noche amarillo (sic). It is not to be confused - certainly not by pilgrims - with Don Diego de noche (mirabilis jalapa) or Marvel of Peru, reputed for its psychedelic and abortifacient properties. As far as I am aware, in the English vernacular, only one species has been accorded the distinction of Santiago, the much maligned common ragwort or James’s weed (herba sancti Jacobi), perhaps for no better reason, as Geoffrey Grigson suggests in An Englishman’s Flora, than the coincidence of the saint’s day and the flower’s full bloom. Can any native Spanish speakers and/or botanists offer any more examples of Jacobean plant lore?
