Nature on our doorstep: Groundsel, the ‘ground-swallower’
Rosaleen Dwyer is the County Heritage Officer at South Dublin County Council – every week she gives us an insight into nature on our doorsteps and the beautiful biodiversity of its plants and wildlife.
One of the wild plants that can often be spotted in winter and early spring is Groundsel. This species is seen by many as a weed, a plant that grows where we do not want it to grow.
It takes its place, however, amongst the many other ‘weeds’ that form an important part of the natural world around us, where they support other species like insects, birds and mammals.
Groundsel has all the characteristics of a very successful plant. Their seeds need very little soil to grow, and while their shallow roots help them survive in harsh places like cracks in pavements, the plants grow fast and strong in the good soil found in flower beds and vegetable patches.
The plant also matures quickly, producing flowers and seeds within 4-6 weeks. Seeds occur on little stalks which have tufts of white hairs to help them spread far and wide, and the process starts all over again.
It is suggested that the name Groundsel may originate from the Norse term ‘ground-swallower’.
Tufts of white hairs help Groundsel’s seeds spread quickly in the wind.
This is due to Groundsel’s ability to spread and produce several generations of new plants in a single year, making it appear to cover or ‘swallow’ bare soil very quickly.
There is, however, another suggestion. Like many wild plants, Groundsel was used in the past for medicinal purposes.
In folk medicine, Groundsel was once used to treat infected wounds, where a poultice of the plant was placed on a wound to draw out the pus. This may have given the plant its Old English name of ‘gundeswilge’, where ‘gund’ describes the pus and ‘swelgan’ means to absorb or swallow.
In the past, Groundsel would also have been chopped up and fed to chickens and domestic ducks and geese. Wild birds like Sparrows and Finches will also pick at its seeds, and the caterpillars of moths like the Flame Shoulder and Cinnabar eat its leaves and flowers.
