Even Better Than Saving a Life Is a Life That Does Not Need to Be Saved

“ACHILLEA | the Addict,” an excerpt from I Have This Thing for Flowers by Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn

In its most generic form, yarrow (Achillea millefolium, mille meaning thousand and folium referring to its numerous petals) appears as clusters of tiny blossoms atop thin, sturdy stalks. The word for the plant’s flowering structure is “umbel.” Picture dill or carrot tops, or radishes and cilantro when they’re left too long in the ground and bolt. At first glance, yarrow seems to be quite delicate; its leaves are a faded sage green and curl like tiny ferns. Ornamental varieties exist in a warm range of yellow, pink, fuchsia, and red, with names like Song Siren, Coronation Gold, Firefly Sunshine, and Amethyst, but in the United States, yarrow blooms white in the wild. The eye is drawn to the knee-height flowers, pale and stark against the green of a surrounding forest, a field, an embankment—it can grow almost anywhere.

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