A weed by sorcerers renowned
The strongest constitution to compound
Called aconite, because it can unlock
All bars and force its passage through a rock.
In Greece it was also known as Wolf's-bane (Lycoctonum), and it was thought that arrow-heads rubbed with it would kill wolves. Turner quaintly writes in his "Herbal" (1568):
"This of all poisons is the most hastie poison, howbeit Pliny saith this herb will kill a man if he take it, except it find in a man something to kill. Let our Londoners which have of late received this blue Wolf's-bane, otherwise called Monk's Cane, take heed that the poison of the root of this herb do not more harm than the freshness of the flower hath done pleasure. Let them not say but they are warned."
Parkinson's name for it is Napellus verus flore cœruleo (Blue Helmet-Flower, or Monk's-hood).
"The Helmet Flower," he writes, "hath divers leaves of a fresh green color on the upper side and grayish underneath, much spread abroad and cut into many slits and notches. The stalk riseth up two or three foot high, beset to the top with the like leaves, but smaller. The top is sometimes divided into two or three branches, but more usually without, whereon stand many large flowers one above another, in form very like a hood, or open helmet, being composed of five leaves, the uppermost of which and the greatest is hollow, like unto a helmet, or headpiece: two other small leaves are at the sides of the helmet, closing it like cheeks, and come somewhat under, and two other which are the smallest hang down like labels, or as if a close helmet were opened and some pieces hung by, of a perfect, or fair, blue color (but grow darker having stood long) which causeth it to be so nourished up in Gardens that their flowers, as was usual in former times (and yet is in many country places) may be laid among green herbs in windows and rooms for the Summertime; but although their beauty may be entertained for the uses aforesaid, yet beware they come not near your tongue or lips, lest they tell you to your cost, they are not so good as they seem to be. In the middest of the flower, when it is open and gapeth wide, are seen certain small threads like beards, standing about a middle head, which, when the flower is past, groweth into three or four, or more, small blackish pods, containing in them black seeds. The roots are brownish on the outside and white within, somewhat big and round about and small downwards, somewhat like unto a small, short carrot root, sometimes two being joined at the head together. It is the true Napellus of the ancient writers, which they so termed from the form of a turnip called Napus in Latin."
Generally speaking the leaf and flower of the monk's-hood resemble the larkspur; and, like the larkspur and the columbine, the plant has wandered away from its original family, the buttercup tribe. The upper sepal has developed from a spur into a hood.
Winter
"WHEN ICICLES HANG BY THE WALL"