Codlins and Cream

Amateur botanists and many country folk will be aware that the popular English name for the Great Hairy Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum) is 'Codlins and Cream'. So say the wildflower books.

But why and when ? This plant - which is in full bloom on the banks of field ditches at this time of year - has strongly pink flowers. That may account for the 'codlins' part of the name: codlins (or codlings) was in times past, if not today, the name given to apples that were, we are told, too sour to eat raw, but tasty if roasted.

What of the cream ? True, there is in the middle of each individual flower of the Hairy Willowherb a central pale patch, clear enough if you see it close up, though not so evident if you are driving past a clump of the stuff at the edge of a country road. Rather a measly helping of cream, we might think.

But if you spot it at the roadside on your travels, look out for the frothy, creamy coloured flowers of Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) which loves the same damp but sunny habitat and often grows mingled with the Willowherb. There's cream for your codlins !

You never know how these popular names arose, or whose ideas they were. Nobody bothers to write such things down. I like to think that some imaginative child, delighted by the combination of colours, exclaimed 'Codlins and cream !', and a proud parent told the rest of the family what little Jim or Mabel had said, and so the whole family came to refer to these two plants together as Codlins and Cream ever afterwards. They may have told their neighbours, the children may have used the term again when out exploring with their mates, the happy choice of name may have been passed on to another generation ("We always called them Codlins and Cream when we were young"). And the new name would somehow have been associated with the Willowherb rather than the Meadowsweet. And it found its way into one of those nature books for children written by worthy ladies in the nineteenth century.

My fantasy, of course. But I doubt if anyone could prove me wrong.


Codlins and Cream