#acalypha

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Monday 14 October 2024

A tropical, evergreen shrub Acalypha wilkesiana (Jacob's coat, beefsteak plant, copperleaf) is grown as a house or conservatory plant. It has multi-coloured, variegated and mottled leaves and long bronze flower catkins.

Jill Raggett

[faguscarolinensis]

Acalypha gracilens / Slender Threeseed Mercury

[dunderella]

your hands, my love

[kolibruy]

"New Friend?"

[dddrunkderella]

i love the feel of your hands

full view on poipiku! 👐 and the first part can be found on my main blog

[hyssopandbee]

[nagaino]

[lmaxell-plants]

Acalypha Rhomboidea - Rhomboid Mercury - Common Copperleaf

Native

Spurge Family (Euphorbiaceae)

Notes: This is a volunteer, don't really know much about it but it's colonizing a part of the yard where we don't really have a lot and the Monarda Bradburiana doesn't seem to mind too much.

[thebotanicalarcade]

n4_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Curtis's botanical magazine.. London ; New York [etc.] :Academic Press [etc.]. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/437739

[breelandwalker]

Witchcraft Exercise - Creating Correspondences

There are dozens of plant species in the arsenal of the green witch. Commonly-used varieties and usage varies somewhat between traditions, but most of us are fairly familiar with industry standards like basil, bay, rosemary, sage, and so on.

But what do you do when faced with a plant that has no listed magical correspondences anywhere that you can find in your witchcraft library? Simple - you create some.

Allow me to demonstrate with a little plant I found in my own backyard. It's a common weed called Virginia copperleaf (Acalypha virginica). But despite it's widespread range and abundant growth as a field weed, there are surprisingly few references to the plant in regional folk medicine and none at all that I could find in contemporary witchcraft.

So in order to incorporate this hardy little weed into my practice, I set about creating some correspondences for it.

First, I researched the physical properties of the plant. It is a small annual spurge with long taproots, a resistance to drought and many herbicides, and a reputation for fast growth and being difficult to eradicate from fields due to prolific seeding. The leaves turn coppery-red in the fall and small spiky flowers bloom among the foliage. It is also mildly poisonous. The juice of the plant may cause contact dermatitis or a mild rash in some people and if ingested, it may cause GI symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea.

Next, I researched references to the plant in folk medicine. I could only find a single reference that cited copperleaf as a possible diuretic and expectorant. That does track with the previous mention of GI symptoms, but it doesn't mean the plant is safe to use. I did discover that an alternate name for the plant is three-seeded mercury or mercury weed, likely because of its' tendency for fast growth and the fact that it is propagated by the wind.

So now comes the business of creating the correspondences, using the physical properties of the plant as a basis.

The first and most obvious association is strength. Any weed that is resistant to drought and herbicide and uprooting is bound to be useful for spells involving tenacity and fortitude. Prosperity is also a likely use, both because of the name copperleaf and the way in which the plant grows and spreads quickly. Because of the alternate name mercury weed and the wind propagation, it could be used for wind magic or communication spells. (I often associate the element of air with communication and the name of a messenger god is right there as well, but your mileage may vary.)

The plant could also be used as an ingredient for baneful magic, either to bind and frustrate someone's efforts by consuming available ground where their ambitions might grow, or in its' capacity as a mild poison, to cause physical discomfort and stomach trouble.

So in the end, I have a handful of copperleaf and a listing in my witchbook that details the properties of the plant and notes that it could be useful for spells involving strength, tenacity, prosperity, wind, or communication, as well as possible baneful uses including binding, discomfort, and sickness.

This is my system for assigning correspondences to previously-unknown plants, and I encourage readers to use it as a template for their own practices or to create their own system. Either way, I recommend the use of a field guide or plant identification app like PlantNet to properly identify plants as you find them. Remember to forage and harvest responsibly, be a good steward of the land around you, and always label your plant cuttings.

Happy Witching! 💚🌿

(If you're enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. You can also check out my show Hex Positive wherever fine podcasts are heard. 😊)

More witchcraft exercises here:

[faguscarolinensis]

Caligo on Acalypha hispida / Owl Butterfly on Chenille Plant at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC

[celestialtitania]

we're still crying over the year post tartaros so here to think about how lucy literally couldn't go ANYWHERE by herself without her team showing up behind her.

like in the anime before phantom started, its implied lucy tried going on a solo job only for everyone to crash along. sure, you say, this was them becoming a team.

then she went to go confront her dad, her team shows up behind her, frantic. and like yes, they thought she left the guild, whatever.

but then she goes to acalypha without telling them, like they just see her there one minute and the next she's gone. and they STILL go running after her. like it took them a full day to track her down but they still did it.

lucy literally couldn't go out of magnolia by herself without her friends tagging along. and then suddenly, they've had their worst fight yet, she lost her oldest friend, and everyone's left in small groups, except for her. she's alone

[von-therion]

Acalypha hispida

[kolibruy]

"A Plant"

[dumpsterfireofsubtext]

Avatrice 1930s AU snippet

Easy, Beatrice thought, kissing Ava. Easy, she thought, tasting Ava’s faintly buttery lips. “Easy,” she said aloud, and ever so gently tugged Ava’s shirt up and out from where it had been tucked into her shorts. Her hands slid easily over Ava’s stomach; both of them were hot and damp with sweat from the humidity. The contact did not make Ava shiver, but rather it made her fall further into Beatrice and sigh.

In a move similar to the one she had done in the morning, Beatrice slipped her fingers between the waistband of Ava’s shorts and the skin of Ava’s stomach. Again, Ava felt the hard press of Beatrice’s ring against her flesh, except now it was warm from their shared body heat, when in the morning it had been startlingly cool.

“Easy,” Ava said back, and she smiled against Beatrice’s mouth.

The deep, verdant peace of the greenhouse was abruptly shattered by a voice yodelling through the greenery. 

“Yoohoo!”

Beatrice and Ava, in their collective shock, leapt apart like two tightly wound springs.

Beatrice dodged the irises behind her by mere centimetres and only slightly clipped her ankle against the table. With that catastrophe avoided, she then promptly stumbled back into a hanging pot of dangling red hot cat’s tails, whose flopping tendrils slapped directly into her open mouth and made her cough. 

Ava did not dodge the irises; she careened back-first into the plant pot behind her, making it rock dangerously on its plate and crumble dirt onto her shirt.

Someone was walking crisply, though cautiously, down the aisle towards them. Ava extracted herself from the plant pot, hastily brushing her shirt free of loose soil and tucking it back in her shorts. She had no time to check on Beatrice because just then Michael appeared, shouldering through the jungle of overhanging flora and smiling broadly.

As soon as she saw him, Ava relaxed her shoulders and practically wheezed out, “Michael. You scared me.” Though Ava realised, belatedly, that it really couldn’t have been anybody else; she didn’t know many people who actually said yoohoo with a serious face –well, apart from Michael, apparently. 

“Did I?” Michael’s brows locked together as he gazed from Ava to Beatrice.

Ava had gotten over her shock significantly faster than Beatrice, and so she turned and began tugging at Beatrice’s sleeve to get her attention. “Bea,” she hissed.

“Yes? What?” Beatrice replied absently. She was in the middle of the arduous task of methodically picking little red bits of flower fluff off of her tongue and hadn’t quite noticed what was going on around her.

Ava shot Michael a quick apologetic smile that seemed to say, Oh, typical Beatrice. You know how she is, always grazing on the Acalyphas. Then she turned her back on him to collar Beatrice. “Michael,” she whispered savagely out of the very confines of her mouth, punctuating the two syllables with icy insinuation.

Beatirce’s eyes widened, and she peered over Ava’s shoulder to smile uneasily at Michael, who, entirely unperturbed, waved back at her with a winsome smile. Beatrice hastily spat out a few more bits of flower and moved to stand beside Ava rather than in front.

“Well!” Michael said. “Beatrice and Miss Silva! I’m glad I caught you both.” 

Beatrice gulped down a final mouthful of cat's tails and turned a concerning shade of grey. “Caught?” she said waveringly. Her voice had taken on the tremulous quality of an innocent man receiving a guilty sentence.

“I heard noise coming from the greenhouse and noticed that the door was open. I thought the blasted foxes had gotten in again.” Michael, as oblivious and jocular as ever, was bouncing merrily on the balls of his feet, looking pleased to see them.

Beatrice, whose brief fit of terror at the thought of having been caught red-handed spooning behind the curtains had passed, cooled into irony, and she said, dryly, “Our mistake,” which Ava promptly elbowed her in the ribs for.

“Was there anything you needed me for?” Ava asked. “Something about my proposals?”

“Oh, yes,” Michael said, snapping his fingers. “I mean, no. I’ve come to invite you both for drinks this afternoon. We left off so strangely the other day. Besides, you two are jollier company than Koi fish.”

Beatrice blinked aggressively in Michael’s direction, but Ava, taking her to the side again, smiled lopsidedly and said under her breath, “Come on, Bea. Lets.”

Beatrice shot a few more hostile blinks at Michael before inclining her head and saying, “Five O'clock.”

Ava broke out into an irrepressibly glorious smile, and, forgetting herself (or rather, remembering herself and why she liked Beatrice such a tremendous amount), she bounced up and gave Beatrice a smacking kiss on the cheek. 

Michael turned from where he had been inspecting a slightly crooked iris and clapped his hands. “Five O’clock,” he said. “Excellent. I’ll tell Gordon to set up the terrace.”

And so Beatrice was left gulping and blinking amidst the cat’s tails, trailing slack-jawed after Ava and Michael as the two of them discussed what cocktails they would mix.