Plant · P-163

Sweet Woodruff

Galium odoratum

European woodland groundcover grown for its coumarin-scented leaves, prized fresh in the Alsatian wine tonic Maitrank and dried for a fragrant tea, with a long list of minor dye and craft uses besides. It needs consistent moisture and full or semi shade, and once temperatures run around 100 F it goes dormant and dies back until cool, wet conditions return, so it only earns its keep as a groundcover where deep shade and moisture hold through summer. Dried leaves stored damp convert their coumarin to the anticoagulant dicoumarin, which can cause fatal internal bleeding, so keep it away from anyone on anticoagulant medication or who is pregnant.