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It is not a secret that my least favorite month is February. Winter keeps holding on with grim ferocity while the joys of spring are, at best, far away. Every year when the end of winter comes around I keep looking out at the garden waiting for the first green shoots to appear. But the garden is still a sea of gray rubble and dead stalks (plus I failed to plant windflowers or snowdrops and the crocuses and hellebores have yet to flower).
So this year, instead of going all the way outside (where it sounds like there is a windstorm), I went to the internet to find some early blooming flowers and I came across the witch hazels (the family Hamamelidaceae). I have encountered them before–in liquid form as an astringent aftershave, however the living plants turn out to be very lovely in a small wilderness meadow sort of way. There are four North American species of witch hazels and two Asian species (one from China and one from Japan). They are small deciduous shrubs/trees with large oval leaves. The American species are also known as winterbloom (which should have served as a hint that they bloomed in the cold season). The picture at the top of the post is the Chinese witch hazel ((H. mollis) currently blooming at the Brooklyn Botanic garden.
Witch hazels have red and yellow flowers with droopy corkscrew petals. From a distance these have a winsome loveliness, but up close they are pretty crazy–like a Murano glassblower got the hiccups or an abstract expressionist sent you a bouquet. Here is a little gallery of witch hazels which I lovingly stole from around the web.
Branding is a powerful force, and I have always assumed that these plants were used in ancient magics by various priestesses, enchantresses, sorceresses, and other suchlike lady thaumaturges. Imagine my distress to learn that the witch hazels are in no way affiliated with witches or any other sort of dark magic. Apparently this version of the word “witch” comes down to us from the Old English word “wice”, which means pliant or, uh, bendy and is unrelated to the magical sort of witch. Thanks a lot, English, what other misleading homonyms do you have lying around the garden beds. Anyway enjoy the witch hazels and pretty soon we will go out and look at some proper spring flowers (if and when the wind calms down).
(that witch better have an OED somewhere)
ferrebeekeeper 