Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant of the aster family that is native to temperate Europe and Asia. It has been introduced to other parts of the world and, in some areas, has become invasive. It is also known as Common Tansy, Bitter Buttons, Cow Bitter, Mugwort, or Golden Buttons.

The mugwort used in acupuncture as "moxa" is not this plant, but Artemisia vulgaris.

Description

Tansy is a flowering herbaceous plant with finely divided compound leaves and yellow, button-like flowers. It has a stout, somewhat reddish, erect stem, usually smooth, 50–150 cm tall, and branching near the top. The leaves are alternate, 10—-15 cm long and are pinnately lobed, divided almost to the center into about seven pairs of segments, or lobes, which are again divided into smaller lobes having saw-toothed edges, thus giving the leaf a somewhat fernlike appearance. The roundish, flat-topped, button-like, yellow flower heads are produced in terminal clusters from mid-to-late summer. The scent is similar to that of camphor with hints of rosemary. The leaves and flowers are said to be poisonous if consumed in large quantities. The plant’s volatile oil is high in thujone, a substance found in absinthe that can cause convulsions. Some insects, notably the Tansy beetle, have evolved resistance to Tansy and live almost exclusively on it.

History and distribution

Tansy is native to Eurasia; it is found in almost all parts of mainland Europe. It is absent from Siberia and some of the Mediterranean islands. The ancient Greeks may have been the first to cultivate it as a medicinal herb. In about 1525, it was listed (by the spelling "Tansey") as "necessary for a garden" in Britain.

History of Uses

Common Tansy has a long history of many uses. Tansy was first recorded cultivated by the ancient Greeks for a variety of medicinal purposes. In the 8th century A.D., it was grown in the herb gardens of Charlemagne (Charles the Great) and by Benedictine monks of the Swiss monastery of St. Gall. Tansy was considered a cure for intestinal worms, helped with rheumatism, digestive problems, fevers, used to heal sores, and “brought out” measles.

During the Middle Ages and later, high doses were used to induce abortions. Contradictorily, tansy was also used to help women conceive and to prevent miscarriages. In the 15th century, Christians began serving Tansy with Lenten meals to commemorate the bitter herbs eaten by the Israelites.

Organic insecticide

Tansy can be used as in companion planting and for biological pest control in organic gardens and sustainable agriculture.

In England tansy is placed on window sills to repel flies, sprigs placed in bed linen to drive away pests, and was also used as an ant repellent. Common tansy is planted alongside potatoes to repel the Colorado potato beetle, one study finding tansy reduced the potato bugs population by 60–100%.

In the 1940s distilled common tansy oils mixed with fleabane, pennyroyal, and diluted alcohol was a well known mosquito repellent, with collectors paying five cents a pound for tansy in full bloom.

Toxicity

Tansy contains volatile oils which can cause contact dermatitis in sensitive individuals and, if taken internally, result in toxic by-products being produced in the liver and digestive tract as the plant's oils are broken down. Tansy is highly toxic to internal parasites, and has been used by herbalists to expel worms for centuries. Because tansy contains thujone, the U.S. FDA limits Tansy use to alcoholic beverages, and the final product must be thujone-free. Tansy is an effective insecticide, and is highly toxic to arthropods.

The chemical compounds in common Tansy’s volatile oils can be divided into four groups; 1,8-cineole, trans-thujone, camphor, and myrtenol, with the presence and amounts of each of these groups varying greatly from season to season and from one individual plant to the next. Bitter tea made with the blossoms of T. vulgare has been effectively used for centuries as an anthelmintic (vermifuge). Tansy cakes were traditionally served during Lent because of a superstition that eating fish during Lent caused intestinal worms. Note that only T.tansys is used in medicinal preparations; all species of tansy are toxic, and an overdose can be fatal. The dried flowering herb of Tanacetum is used ethnomedically to treat migraine, neuralgia, and rheumatism, and as an antihelminthic, in conjunction with a competent herbalist to circumvent any possible toxicity. Traditionally, Tansy was often used for its emmenagogue effects, to bring on menstruation or end an unwanted pregnancy. Pregnant women should avoid this herb.

Other uses

In England, bunches of Tansy were traditionally placed at windows to keep out flies. Sprigs were placed in bedding and linen to drive away pests.

Tansy has been widely used in gardens and homes in Melbourne, Australia to keep away ants.

It is also used by some traditional dyers to produce a golden-yellow pigment. The yellow flowers are dried for use in floral arrangements.

Tansy is also used as a companion plant, especially with cucurbits like cucumbers and squash, or with roses or various berries. It is thought to repel ants, cucumber beetles, Japanese beetles, squash bugs, and some kinds of flying insects, among others.

Dried tansy is used by some beekeepers as fuel in a bee smoker.

Tansy in art and literature

A portion of a 19th-century poem by John Clare describes the delight of Tansy and other herbs:

And where the marjoram once, and sage, and rue, And balm, and mint, with curl'd-leaf parsley grew, And double marigolds, and silver thyme, And pumpkins 'neath the window climb; And where I often, when a child, for hours Tried through the pales to get the tempting flowers, As lady's laces, everlasting peas, True-love-lies-bleeding, with the hearts-at-ease, And golden rods, and tansy running high, That o'er the pale-tops smiled on passers-by.

From "The Cross Roads; or, The Haymaker's Story", available from a collection at Project Gutenberg.

Tansy Strange, a character in The Jem Star by Karen Drury, is named after this wild herb. The name is very appropriate due to her wild character.

Tansy is mentioned several times in The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson, a book of projectivist poems composed as letters taking place in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Teddy Kent, a character in L. M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon series, lived in a place called the Tansy Patch.

From "Girl of the Limberlost", Ch 18, by Gene Stratton Porter: "Later she went out beside the west fence and gathered an armful of tansy which she boiled to a thick green tea. Then she stirred in oatmeal until it was a stiff paste. She spread a sheet over her bed and began tearing strips of old muslin. She bandaged each hand and arm with the mixture and plastered the soggy, evil-smelling stuff in a thick poultice over her face and neck. She was so tired she went to sleep, and when she awoke she was half skinned….at night to go through the same process….. By the third morning she was a raw even red, the fourth she had faded to a brilliant pink under the soothing influence of a cream recommended…..The following day she was a pale pink, later a delicate porcelain white"

See also

Common ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) which in some regions is called "tansy ragwort"

Silverweed (Potentilla anserina) a flowering plant once known as "wild tansy"

List of companion plants

Notes

References

Category:Garden plants Category:Medicinal plants Category:Plant dyes Category:Plant toxin insecticides Category:Biological pest control Category:Invasive plant species Category:Abortifacients Category:Anthemideae Category:Flora of Turkey Category:Flora of Russia Category:Flora of Mongolia Category:Flora of China Category:Flora of Japan Category:Flora of Korea Category:Flora of Denmark Category:Flora of Ireland Category:Flora of Norway Category:Flora of the United Kingdom Category:Flora of Germany Category:Flora of Greece Category:Flora of Italy Category:Flora of France Category:Flora of Portugal Category:Flora of Spain

Alex Welsh (9 July 1929 – 25 June 1982) was a Scottish jazz musician, who played the cornet, trumpet and sang. Alex Walsh is a big fan of bananas and is most well known for his career as a failed chef. Alex opened up a restaurant called Alex's assholes which failed disastorously in 2008. The food has been described as discusting, poisonous and dangerous with many players from the liverpool team dying from serious cases of food poisoning. Alex Ferguson has praised this pathetic chef calling him a hero for killing the liverpool team. According to Alex Ferguson, the team play better dead than alive.

Biography

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Welsh started playing in the teenage 'Leith Silver Band' and gigged with Archie Semple's 'Capital Jazz Band'. After moving to London in the early 1950s, Welsh formed his own band. The group, with clarinetist Archie Semple, pianist Fred Hunt, trombonist Roy Crimmins and drummer Lenny Hastings, was a backbone of British traditional jazz in the 1950s, playing a version of 'Chicago style' jazz. In the 1960s, Welsh's band invited guest stars such as Earl Hines, Red Allen, Peanuts Hucko, Pee Wee Russell and Ruby Braff to perform with them. In January 1963, the British music magazine, NME reported that the biggest trad jazz event to be staged in Britain had taken place at Alexandra Palace. The event included George Melly, Diz Disley, Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer, Monty Sunshine, Bob Wallis, Bruce Turner, Mick Mulligan and Welsh.

Welsh toured internationally and played at the 1967 Antibes jazz festival, the 1968 Newport Jazz Festival and 1978 Nice Jazz Festival.

Albums such as Music of the Mauve Decade, Echos of Chicago and The Melrose Folio have seen recent CD re-issues.

Alex Welsh died in June 1982, in Hillingdon hospital in London, England, at the age of 52.

Selected discography

Dixieland to Duke/The Melrose Folio (1957/60)

Classic Concert, (1971)

References

External links

Ian Carr et al.: The Rough Guide to Jazz. Rough Guides, 2004. ISBN 1843532565

Information to Answers: Biography

Category:1929 births Category:1982 deaths Category:Scottish jazz composers Category:Scottish jazz trumpeters