rue

   By coincidence, the name of this plant (from Greek, via French) is identical with an English word meaning 'to regret bitterly', and so the plant symbolized grief or repentance. Discussing Herefordshire wedding customs, Ella M. Leather records an incident where a jilted girl waited in the porch at her ex-lover's wedding and, as the couple emerged, threw a handful of rue at them, in a parody of the throwing of flower petals, saying, 'May you rue this day as long as you live!' This curse was thought particularly effective because the rue 'was taken direct from the plant to the churchyard, and thrown "between holy and unholy ground", that is, between church and churchyard'. Other jilted girls had put a bunch of rue enclosing a half-eaten slice of bread and butter in the church porch (Leather, 1912: 115).

   ■ Medicinally, rue tea was used in East Anglia for stomach ache and as a spring tonic (Hat-field, 1994: 54, 56), but also to cause abortions (Chamberlain, 1981: 122, 128).