A Druid's Handbook to the Spiritual Power of Plants: Spagyrics in Magical and Sexual Rituals - Jon G. Hughes 2014

The Life Cycle of The Flowering Plant
The Flower
Assessing the Natural Resources

Flowers, or, more accurately, flowering plants, play a large role in ancient Druidic lore. Many flowers have been ignored for centuries as the development of medicine focused on herbs, shrubs, and roots rather than on flowers. As we have seen, Edward Bach brought the curative properties of flowers back into public focus, and his range of flower remedies remains popular to this day. The Druids, however, had a different approach to using flowers, and to begin to understand this we must first look at the flower life cycle and its place in the natural world.

The Life Cycle of The Flowering Plant

More than a quarter of a million flowering plants have been identified and classified. Each flowering plant matures through one of three life cycles. It will be defined as either annual, biennial, or perennial. In all cases the life cycle consists of the same stages of development: germination, growth, flowering, and seed production.

Annuals complete this life cycle within one year. They flower only once, produce their seeds, then die. Biennials do not flower until their second year of growth; then they produce their seeds and die. Perennials flower and produce seed for many years, sometimes dying back after seed production only to send out fresh growth the following year.

Various plants trigger the beginning of their life cycle at different times of the year. Some flower in summer and produce their fruit in autumn, others develop earlier, and still others develop later in the year. A plant’s life cycle is further affected by climate, number of daylight hours, the soil in which it grows, and its general environment. It is important first to gain knowledge of the theoretical times of a plant’s life cycle and then to get to know the actual plants you are working with in their natural habitat, as this may affect dramatically the triggering and rate of progress of their individual life cycles. Only in this way will you learn to harvest your flowers at the best possible moment.

The ancient Druids had a thorough understanding of the life cycles of the plants surrounding them, based not on any scientific theory, but rather on the practical necessities of survival. Knowing when plants yielded their various fruits, berries, and nuts and at what time of year vegetables were able to be harvested and stored could make the difference between life and death for the hunter-gatherers of the Celtic races.