Walking in the shade of spring.

Again walking towards L'Ecluse, yes in French, we walk on the language border. Near my hometown of Hauthem. The most beautiful part of the walk. Right moist grassland, swamp, ponds with reeds and slender primrose and left the hollow road. I always feel safe here, uterus sure. The fertility of baby plants is also greatest here. We find new shoots of the hedge vine, which with some patience spins its searching branches around your ring finger. Marriage of man and nature! That would be nice.

We find other plants, the double leaves of the valley herb. The valley herb Maianthemum bifolium, that was a long time ago. Maianthemum means hawflower, due to the flowering time, and is derived from maius, May and anthemos, flower. It is closely related to the Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) and grows, like this well-known plant, in shady places. The name Dalwort also refers to its growing site: a valley or valley. His predilection to grow in bellimy places gave birth to the name shadow flower. Probably this name was taken from the German folk name Schattenblume. The name Bifólium, like the Latin species name Bifólium, indicates the possession of only two leaves bi, two and folium, leaf.

Already earlier, much earlier in 1552, for example, at Brunfels the plant was called Einblatt. Dodonaeus in 1554 calls her Eenbladt and adds:'naer den Hoochduytschen Einbladtin Latin Unifolium oft Monaphyllon.'In the period before flowering only one leaf has developed, later with the flower stem the second leaf forms. A nice old name is Wilde Mietjes, perhaps due to the fact that it was formerly housed in the genus Convallaria (Lily of the Valley). Unlike the Lily of the Valley, the Dalwort has never been cultivated in gardens or courts and so they started to speak of wild lilies. The scientific name was Convallaria bifolia, a name given to the plant by Linnaeus.

Botanically they did not know how to deal with this plant, which is evident from the various genera to which this herb was supposed to belong; we mention in random order: Smilacina, Bifólium, Evallaris, Kiophila, Unifolium and Styrandra. Until it was definitively incorporated into the genus Maiânthemum by Schmidt (1763-96). Whether or not mixed with other herbs, it used to be touted in various ailments and diseases. Although there was sometimes confusion with Lily of the valley, Dodoens described the difference 'if the cleyne white flowers wash the meyebloemkens ghelijck slightly less and not without drying, close to the which cleyne round besikens wash the first white and nael root.