Achillea Millefolium - Yarrow flower meaning


I used to grow lots of herbs and had a little herb nursery for a while when my kids were young and I grew Yarrow once and planting it once is all it takes! Yarrow loves Nevada and it loved our yard, it grew better than our grass and in our grass... even though, I still liked it for its hardiness and colors and what I learned about it recently intrigued me even more. It's meaning is war. It is a member of the daisy and aster families. It is also called Milfoil, Sneezewart, Soldier's Friend and Thousand Leaf. It has some common uses as a salad green, a wound dressing, an astringent and antidepressant. In Roman times it was called Herba Militaris as was valued for treating wounds, which brings me to what I found really interesting. From Floridata.com I learned that Linnaeus, the father of botanical nomenclature, coined the generic name Achillea, in honor of Achilles, the greek hero of the Trojan War in Homer's Iliad, who used Yarrow to treat his soldiers' war wounds. Yarrow was also used with plantain in the civil war as a poultice to treat the soldiers' war wounds. I was comforted that the meaning war reflected it's use in treating war wounds rather than as a symbol of starting wars.

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