Meadowsweet

Filipendula ulmaria

Meadowsweet is a damp-ground perennial with frothy cream flowers and a powerful sweet-almond, haylike scent. It is European rather than Northeast-native, but is hardy enough to grow in the region and has escaped cultivation in parts of North America.¹

The older name “meadwort” is literal: the flowers were used in Anglo-Saxon England to scent mead. They also served as a strewing herb, scattered on floors for their lingering fragrance.²

Meadowsweet used to sit in the genus Spiraea. That old botanical name is part of the history behind the word “aspirin,” a connection that outlasted the plant’s taxonomic move into Filipendula.³ The flower heads contain salicylic acid, but that fact is better understood as part of the plant’s chemistry and history than as a reason to treat it as medicine.¹

Despite its herbaceous form, meadowsweet belongs to the rose family. The loose flower clusters make the relationship easier to imagine than the leaves do. In New England it is documented as a non-native plant of meadows and disturbed wet ground, where its tall stems and fragrant white panicles can make it conspicuous in summer.⁴ Its aroma is carried by both flowers and leaves, which explains why it was historically useful for scenting drinks and domestic spaces, not only for its appearance.