by Ginny Renjilian
Angelica Atropurpurea
AKA Purple-stemmed Angelica, purplestem angelica, great angelica, American angelica, high angelica, and masterwort
While weeding by the Bell Tower on Wednesday, Betsy and her team came across an unusual flower: the purplestem angelica (Angelica atropurpurea). This native flower loves moist soil, so is a natural fit for the lakeside, but seeing one in bloom is a bit of a thrill because this plant blooms only once in its multi-year life. It primarily grows in wetlands or along water, and it’s even an official Wetland Indicator Species—confirmation that the lake is wet!
The first written record of this plant was by William Bartram in the 1770s. Today, this flower is used in gardens around water features as it’s popular with pollinators and deer resistant. Pollinators love it because of its intoxicating effect on bugs—it's reported that bumblebees and butterflies fly clumsily and sometimes are even unable to fly after drinking its nectar (insert drinking joke here). Despite that, this flower is definitely not one you see every day. In fact, it’s considered endangered in the state of Rhode Island (though it’s classed as “fairly widespread” in Massachusetts).
So how do you recognize this plant? The stem, as the name suggests, is a lovely purple and is erect, smooth, and hollow. The flowers grow in umbels, umbrella-like shapes like in Queen Anne’s lace, which makes sense as both this and Queen Anne’s lace are in the same plant family as carrots and parsley—Apiaceae. Unlike Queen Anne’s Lace, the umbels of the purplestem angelica form a ball or globelike shape. But mixing it up with Queen Anne’s Lace is not much of a concern—the risky lookalike to this plant is the invasive and dangerous hogweed, and deadly water hemlock and poison hemlock. One thing to check is the smoothness of the stems—on hogweed, the stems are hairy and the leaves lobed, while angelica has smooth stems and small leaflets. For the hemlocks, their leaves are much thinner than this angelica plant.
This plant is not just “purty”—it’s edible, medicinal, and culturally significant to many indigenous people. The name actually comes from its wide range of uses—a legend says that an angel revealed its healing powers to humankind, hence the name angelica. The young stalks can be eaten like celery and the flavor is apparently similar, though some sources say the flavor is closer to licorice. Despite the taste being potentially celeriac, early colonists used parts of the plant for cake and candy flavoring. Across the pond in Europe, angelica was a treatment for alcoholism.
Indigenous groups in the US used it medicinally and religiously—there are too many groups and uses to make an exhaustive list but here’s a sampling:
Some groups in California burned angelica during shaman's prayers
Native peoples in Arkansas carried it in their medicine bags and mixed it with tobacco for smoking
The Mvskoke Creek (Muscogee) tribe use it medicinally to cure back pain, calm panic attacks, and treat tummy aches, and ceremonially during the Ribbon Dance in the Green Corn Ceremony. The Creek name for this important plant is notossv.
If you’re in the mood for a floral scavenger hunt, cut in towards the lake next to Timothy’s Playground in Lower Miller Park and try to find this special plant for yourself. Otherwise, join us at the weekly Gloves on Gardening on Wednesday morning and someone can point it out to you, and you’ll have a front row seat to whatever we discover next in the beautiful wilds of the shores!
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