the.com/tansy
A poison wearing a flower's smile, equally happy to season your pie or kill your worms.
means A bitter, aromatic herb (Tanacetum vulgare) with button-like yellow flowers, historically used in cooking, medicine, and as an insect and worm repellent, though it can be toxic in quantity.
from From Old French 'tanesie' or 'tanaisie', shortened from Late Latin 'athanasia', which traces back to Greek 'athanasia' meaning 'immortality' — from 'a-' (not) plus 'thanatos' (death). The flowers were said to keep for a remarkably long time after cutting, and the herb's preserving, embalming, and worm-killing powers all leaned into that deathless reputation; so the plant that could kill your worms was named, fittingly, after the refusal to die.
- medieval embalming
- Stuffed into corpses to keep insects and decay away
- toxic dose
- Thujone in the oil can trigger convulsions, death
- easter custom
- Eaten in cakes to purge winter's salted diet
- button blooms
- Yellow flower heads earned it the name bitter buttons
- invasive streak
- Banned as noxious weed across several U.S. states
tansy ragwort hybrid — invasive weed in northwest us pacific regions, spreads across millions of acres in oregon and washington
tansy oil remedy — used historically for abortions and parasites in 18th-19th century europe, often caused poisoning deaths
tansy beetle — chrysomela graminis, blue-green metallic insect native to britain, feeds exclusively on tansy plants