Yarrow
Achillea millefolium
- Flat white flower heads
- Feathered leaves
- Divination rhymes
Yarrow's botanical name points at Achilles, who is supposed to have carried it to staunch his soldiers' wounds. Whether or not the Iliad had a herb garden, the name stuck, and yarrow appears in wound-care folklore from Greece to the Hebrides.
In Britain the plant did double duty as a divinatory tool. A sprig placed under the pillow, accompanied by the right rhyme, was said to show the sleeper the face of a future spouse. In China entirely unrelated stalks of yarrow have been used to consult the I Ching for well over two thousand years, one of those coincidences that folklorists enjoy more than they can explain.
It grows anywhere it is not actively discouraged, which is a large part of why so many traditions found a use for it.