Remembering Darnel, a Forgotten Plant of Literary, Religious, and Evolutionary Significance

Abstract

This paper explores the complex interactions between people and the psychotoxic crop contaminant and wheat mimicker darnel (Lolium temulentum). Bringing together knowledge from literary, historical, religious, medical, and scientific sources, we trace the ways in which the plant?s cultural story has been informed by its cultivation (accidental and otherwise) by humans. Darnel is a man-made plant that evolved from a perennial progenitor and was subject to the same human-mediated selection pressures as the ancestral cereal species it infested. The toxicity of darnel grains is due to a cocktail of phytochemicals secreted by genetically complex endophytic fungi of the genus Epichlo?, closely related to ergot (Claviceps purpurea). We show how darnel?s reputation as a poisonous cereal mimic that corrupts the food-chain made the plant a symbol of malign subversion, notably invoked in crises around religious heterodoxy and political subversion. We consider the ways in which literary allusions, from Shakespeare to Dickens, identified the corrupting influence of darnel with psychological and social breakdown. Darnel is classified as extinct in the United Kingdom and other developed countries with intensive agriculture, and its significance as a food chain contaminant and literary and religious symbol is vanishing from experience and understanding. This paper, then, is intended to serve as a textual seed bank to collect darnel?s cultural traces, and to demonstrate the ways in which the plant has annotated key debates and moments of crisis in human history.authorsversionPeer reviewe

Grass blindness

“…L. temulentum is a rare example of a poisonous grass. There are accounts of its toxicity from the earliest periods of recorded human history (Thomas, Archer, & Marggraf, ). The grain often contains a melange of alkaloids and other secondary products with potent physiological and psychological effects.…”

“…Shemesh (2017) In a world where transformation is unquestioned and forms a cornerstone of belief systems, little wonder that darnel became a symbol of mimicry, subversion and heresy (Thomas et al, 2016). Even L.…”

“…L. temulentum has a long history of use as a hormetic treatment for a range of conditions (Teall, ; Thomas, Archer, & Marggraf, ): herbals dating back to the classical pre‐Christian era tell us as much (for an entertaining survey of early herbals—including reference to L. temulentum —see Cooke‐Trench, ). A particularly dramatic example of traditional medication containing L. temulentum is the preparation known as mithridate, a complex panacea credited with cure‐all properties, especially canceling or expelling poison (Thomas et al, ). It was named after King Mithridates of Pontus, a first‐century BCE ruler in the Black Sea region, who supposedly increased his immunity to poisoning by his enemies through self‐administration of progressively stronger doses of toxins—a procedure called mithridatism.…”

“…Traditional medicine employs deliberate administration or consumption of herbal phytotoxins to invoke “eustress” according to the principle of hormesis (Kaiser, ). L. temulentum has a long history of use as a hormetic treatment for a range of conditions (Teall, ; Thomas, Archer, & Marggraf, ): herbals dating back to the classical pre‐Christian era tell us as much (for an entertaining survey of early herbals—including reference to L. temulentum —see Cooke‐Trench, ). A particularly dramatic example of traditional medication containing L. temulentum is the preparation known as mithridate, a complex panacea credited with cure‐all properties, especially canceling or expelling poison (Thomas et al, ).…”

Trapped in time: Lingering with “Plantness”

“…In modern urban existence, the complex lives of plants are often reduced to simplistic categories, which resonate with human utility; as Jahren () noted: “Human civilization has reduced the plant, a four‐hundred‐million‐year‐old life form, into three things: food, medicine and wood” (p. 279). These categories speak little of the contributions plants make to the ecological fabric of life on Earth; both on land and in the oceans, nor to the exploitation of humans by plants, for example, Darnel Lolium temulentum (Thomas, Archer, & Marggraf Turley, ); neither do they acknowledge the complex inter‐ and intrasystems in which plants live out their lives (Gagliano, ; Iverson et al, ). The temporal zones that plants inhabit need to be multifaceted: the “capability to sense and respond to external mechanical stimuli at various timescales is essential to many physiological aspects in plants, including self‐protection, intake of nutrients and reproduction” (Guo et al, ).…”