Seven Herbs of Spring

This is one of those topics where my love of gardening, words, and Japan intersect. It all started with Rapunzel. Or rather, it started with Lisa, who is having a baby, decorating her nursery with a mural of a field of yellow flowers and the text "Many years ago fields of yellow rape blossoms stretched across the area surrounding Yoyogi Uehara." Lisa remarked that she finds the smell of rape blossoms revolting. And that's what reminded me of Rapunzel.

According to the Brothers Grimm, Rapunzel's mom had a craving for some greens growing in the garden next door, a beautiful garden belonging to a witch. The witch catches Rapunzel's dad stealing the greens and forces him to agree, in recompense, to hand over their first-born, who turns out to be Rapunzel, who is named for the stolen salad greens.

But what plant is Rapunzel named after? I had always thought it was rape. But after telling Lisa that, I began to have my doubts. In the "Household Stories from Grimm", Lucy Crane translates "One day the wife was standing at the window, and looking into the garden, she saw a bed filled with the finest rampion (a vegetable like a radish); and it looked so fresh and green that she began to wish for some; and at length she longed for it greatly...She made a salad of it at once." The translation by Ralph Manheim, considered to be the most accurate, though not always as poetic, says, "One day the wife stood at this window, looking down into the garden, and her eyes lit on a bed of the finest rapunzel, which is a kind of lettuce." The translation by Lore Segal says, "One day the woman was standing by the window looking into the garden and saw a bed planted with the most beautiful lettuce, of the kind they call Rapunzel." In "Translating Rapunzel" Kathleen J. Rinkes at the German Department of the University of California, Berkeley finds some of these translations absurd. She favors lamb's lettuce also called mache or corn salad. Although she seems to miss the point that, whatever the plant, it was the leafy green tops that were eaten, not the roots.

According to my dictionary, rampion is Campanula rapunculus a kind of radish, native to Britain, that has tops that can be eaten raw in a salad or cooked as greens.

On the other hand rape is Brassica napus which has three subgroups: one grown for it's leaves (collard greens, turnip greens), one grown for its roots (rutabaga, Swedish turnips or Swedes), and one grown for its seeds (rapeseed, canola). Before World War II large quantities of rapeseed and oil were imported from Japan.

Brassica rapa (mustard greens, rapini) which is closer to the name Rapunzel.

In the days before refrigeration, people craved the first greens of spring. In the American south, we ate collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, and dandelion leaves. And then I remembered that the Japanese, too, have a tradition of eating The seven herbs of spring for the New Year, or nanakusa. And Brassica rapa (スズナ) is usually listed.

Is one of these plants in the song, oborotsukiyo that Lisa's mural refers to?

春の七草「はるのななくさ」

The Gunma Prefecture Botanical Garden provided the Latin equivalents for the Japanese common and some great photos.

• Oenanthe stolonifera (water celery, dropwort) 芹「セリ」
• Capsella bursa-pastoris ペンペン草　ナズナ
• Gnaphalium affine 母子草「ハハコグサ」
• Stellaria media 仏の座「ホトケノザ」 三階草「サンカイグサ」
• Brassica rapa (mustard greens, celery cabbage) 菘「スズナ」 蕪「カブ」
• Raphanus sativus (daikon) 大根「だいこん」スズシロ

The Nagoya Port Wildflower Database provides a slightly different list of The Seven Spring Herbs. This is a Japanese site with English access. The fact that they named the Nagoya Port Wildflower Gardenブルーボネット (bluebonnet) delights me, since bluebonnets are the state flower of Texas, where I live now.

Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
March 14, 2004

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