Most everyone who’s ever lived in Aiken has at least some memory or impression of Sand River, whether as a place at the heart  of a massive drainage project, the site of catastrophic erosion, or — as is the case for most people —  an intriguing feature of Hitchcock Woods and a destination for playing and exploring.

My memories and impressions would fill a book, which I’ll distill to a very few: trekking down to the river with my brother 50-something years ago and wading the wild torrents, (which would pale in comparison the ferocity and danger of later century currents); journeys upriver between rains to treasure-hunt for sherds of old pottery, fragments of aqua and amethyst-colored glass bottles, pieces of exquisitely-patterned china, odd metal relics and, on rare occasion, an unbroken antique bottle or an arrowhead washed down from the banks.

There were also those golden October afternoons when Mrs. Brown, a Winter Colony resident, arrived from Maine and took a party of neighborhood children down to the woods for a picnic on a hillside overlooking Sand River. She read stories to us; we swung on the vines, played in the sand, and, when our appetites could no longer be contained, we ate our sandwiches.

For much of my life from childhood onward, my bottom dresser drawer was filled with treasures from Sand River. The monetary value was zero. I just liked knowing they were there. Sand River — an ephemeral river that rises and falls with the rain — is one of Aiken’s original enchantments, albeit so changed by the elements of time as to be unrecognizable for most of it’s length. 

So it was with special interest that I read a memory of Sand River from 1875 in a a two-part article titled, “Spring Days in Aiken,” written by a man who’d brought his wife to piney-aired landscape of Aiken for its famed restorative properties. The topic of the river rose during a general description of the landscape to the west of town:

A little way off begins a strange valley, with wooded sides, running to the west, and along his bottom trails the river of sand. This river resembles almost any other, except in the fact that there’s not a drop of water in it. The rains have brought down from the hillsides thousands of currents of fine clean earth, of a yellow shade and have caused them to eddy about the trees and roots that have stood in the way, and to spread and disperse themselves and all the inequalities of the ground. Yet the torrents of water which have caused this have been instantly absorbed in the bed of their own making, leaving all the marks of their presence, indeed their facsimiles upon the sand above.

I believe that it is hereabout that the town urchins, and industrious visitors as well, come to gather the colored earth for mementos of the place. It  is not unusual to find before your hotel door on a March morning a group of children…  holding in their hands bunches of roses in full bloom, and tubes of glass filled with fifty specimens of tinted sands. The colors range from green to russet-red and chrome-yellow, and include chocolate and violet. Every stranger buys, and it is a thriving trade. 

It’s true. There is something about the place that compels one to bring something home. A shoeful of sand, a porcelain relic, a happy memory.

By Laura Lance

If kudzu had a protégé, her name would be Stachy floridana, or Florida betony. As the name conveys, this spectacularly invasive weed that has spent the past 15 years overtaking our flower gardens, vegetable gardens, compost bin, and entire lawn originally hailed from Florida, where it is native. The first betony arrived to our 3-acre plot around 2008, likely via a purchased shrub, harboring in its pot a piece of the plant’s distinctive white tuber, which is shaped like a rattlesnake rattle, hence another of its common names, rattlesnake weed.

With so many reasons to despise it, how did I come to develop a fondness for the plant?

Just a bit.

That’s all it takes of the root to start a single betony plant, which will quickly multiply into dozens, then scores, and thousands of plants. Weeding is useless to control it and, in my experience, has only served to further propagate it.

My first attempt to eradicate it in 2012 — more like an archaeological dig than a mere weeding — involved methodically digging and combing through my mother’s largest daylily bed, which is about half the size of our house, and painstakingly extracting, rattle-by-rattle, the exquisitely invasive root systems of each plant. I even sifted the soil to make sure I got every trace of the roots, then bagged them up for the trash can. It is not possible to overstate the difficulty of such a task, as those roots and rattles were plunged to depths of 12-inches and more. But it was worth the effort, I thought, to rid the daylily bed, once and for all, of the most prolific weed I’d ever encountered.

Had I been listening more closely, I might have heard the betony laughing at my toil. I might have heard the conspiracies being whispered among the stems scattered about the perimeter of the bed.

According to every site I’ve consulted, Florida betony is propagated only by the root tubers. I beg to differ. As we’ve suspected when weeding, and confirmed from mowing, (which casts the stems across the lawn), the upper parts are perfectly capable of propagating the plant. 

Once Florida betony has taken up residence, there are basically three ways for dealing with it. The most quoted method, offered up in humor by Amanda McNulty of Clemson Extension, is to move. Another method would be to spend 2-3 years saturating the yard and gardens with an intensive, methodical pesticide campaign with built-in spectre of bringing harm to other plants and organisms. The third method is to learn to live with it. We opted for the latter.

Looking on the sunny side

There are those who intentionally plant Florida betony into their landscape. Both the Florida Native Plant Society and the Florida Wildflower Foundation recommend incorporating betony into what’s known as a “freedom lawn,” roughly defined as a yard that contains a variety of plants other than manicured grass — much like a meadow. The term, “freedom” refers to the ideal of the maintenance-free lawn — no mowing, no fertilizers, no pesticides, no bother.

Florida betony accommodates by dying back in late May and going utterly dormant for the summer, but not before gifting the landscape with the loveliest of swan songs — a profusion of lavender-colored flowers that arrive at the start of April and, for nearly two months, draws butterflies and bees in droves, transforming our back yard into one big pollinator garden.

Here, it bears mention that Florida betony is in the mint family — square stem, opposite leaves, trumpet-shaped flowers. Think: basil, rosemary, bee-balm, peppermint, spearmint, and, one of my favorites, a South Carolina native called horse-mint. All of these plants are favorites to bees.

While the betony flowers are busy with bees during April and May, the scene below ground is equally busy. This is when the plants produce the myriad white tubers that help the plant do what it does best — spread.

Still looking on the sunny side, the entire plant is edible. So if you find yourself in the midst of a famine some spring, head to your nearest Florida betony patch for some forage. But there’s no need to wait for a famine to appreciate the culinary delights of this plant.

StartIng at the root.

According to the website, Eat the Weeds, Florida betony has an upscale relative called Stachy affinis, or Chinese artichoke, whose tubers can command a price of $150 per pound in the restaurant marketplace. These delicacies arrived, first, to fine dinner plates in Crosne, France, then in New York City — all via China, where they are native.

Our yard weeds look remarkably similar and even have a similar common name — wild artichoke — but they lack the pedigree to command New York City prices. It is nonetheless a tasty tuber with a satisfying crunch that is free for the digging. The best time to harvest in our area is March-May when the bright white tubers are at their peak freshness. Once dormancy sets in, the tubers begin to wither, turn brown, and develop an off taste.

Below are some photos of tubers I dug last year, in late March 2022, followed by the progression from garden to table as a stir fry and, next, a tofu curry. Do those tubers look like big fat grubs? Yes they do. I would probably cut them into little “pearls” for company dinner.

The texture of the tubers is like water chestnuts or radishes — a nice complement to stir fry. The flavor is mild and also reminiscent of a radish, minus the heat. They can also be eaten raw. These tubers would be virtue enough for one plant, but the upper part of the betony also has something to contribute to the dinner plate.

The greens

Unlike the distinctive and delightful scents and flavors of so many other mint-family leaves, Florida Betony is almost devoid of scent. Eaten raw, the leaves have a very mild, peppery taste with slight muddy notes to the flavor. I personally like it. But even the earliest spring leaves have a tough texture that’s unpalatable for more than a garnish. So the better choices are to make a tea (which I cannot recommend for culinary pleasure) or to cook the greens. Any dish suitable for cooked spinach would be suitable for substituting with cooked Florida betony. A simple sauté in olive oil and garlic, followed by a light steaming, is a great start. The flavor is very pleasant and makes a nice complement to a breakfast plate.

Poetry, Medicine and Lore

Little, if anything, is known about Stachys floridana’s past, except that the plant was limited to the lower half of Florida until the 1940s, when it was brought northward and westward, taking up fast residence from Texas to the Carolinas.

The plant was only discovered in the first part of the 1800s, during the Seminole wars. We can only imagine, today, what betony knowledge and lore might have been passed along by the Seminoles, had the invading Europeans not devoted their energies to war, conquest and extirpation.

Of the other hundreds of Stachys species, much more is known. This is especially true of another betony familiar to American gardeners, Stachys officinalis, whose importance is attested by a thousand years of history recorded in natural and medicinal texts.

Stachys officinalis, or wood betony, is native to Europe and Asia, where it has been described by numerous cultures over the ages as a both a panacea and a magical herb. The lists of medicinal and healing properties attributed to the plant throughout all these centuries is staggering. Pliny the Elder, in his 1st century text, Historia Naturalis, described betony as being more highly valued than any other healing plant. Details on these histories can be read at the Met Museum’s “Cloister Gardens” blog. and at Mrs. M. Grieve’s “A Modern Herbal.”

More recently, in 2020, a total of 60 Stachys species, including S. floridana, and 10 subspecies were studied at the University of Athens in Greece for their phytochemical profiles. The findings from this study (see pgs 53-66 of the paper) along with other studies on Stachys spp — at least one of which also included Florida betony — have only echoed the praises of a thousand years.

Whether the studies will ever be designed to examine betony’s equally praised virtue as a protective, magical herb is anyone guess. In Pliny the Elder’s day, betony was planted around homes and churchyards to ward off nightmares, malevolent spirits, and other dangers. It was worn in amulets to confer protection when traveling. Some of these traditions continue today.

An Abundance of Betony

Certainly, there are worse things than having a yard overrun with betony. In another time, we might have felt doubly blessed. In praise of betony, whatever its virtues, I offer a bit of poetry excerpted from the 9th century gardening manuscript, Hortulus, by Walahfrid Strabo:

In the mountains and woods, in the meadows and depths of the valleys
Almost everywhere, far and wide, grows the precious abundance
Of betony. Yet I have it too in my garden, and there
It learns a softer way of life in the tended soil.

And indeed it does.

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