Many thanks to Julian for this interesting and detailed article:

I’d known for some time that the common name of Devil’s-bit Scabious (DBS), Succisa pratensis, is thought to have arisen because of the odd appearance and sudden blunt ending to the black roots. (Succisa = ‘cut down’ underneath, pratensis = ‘meadow’) Almost as though they have been bitten off. Every reference to the plant mentions this, although I couldn’t find a single image to illustrate it. So I thought that I should dig up one of my root-trained plants which had been planted out this spring, to confirm this. And this is what I found, after washing off most of the soil. Firstly, the roots seem very well-developed and largely white, but secondly, I’d struggle to identify any sections that look as though they’ve been bitten off. Looked at in detail, they are a little unusual in form, at least in places, but hardly enough to make one describe it as it has been historically, as bitten off.

What about the scabious part of the name? Again, it’s often mentioned that for centuries it was used to treat skin inflammation and human scabies – caused by the parasitic mite, Sarcoptes scabiei. And was even used to treat skin sores caused by the bubonic plague. Some sites suggest it has anthelmintic properties, and is a useful immunostimulant. Nicholas Culpeper (1616-54) thought highly of its medicinal properties and wrote “The root was longer until the devil bit it away, envying its usefulness to mankind”.

Eventually, on a site curated by the Royal College of Physicians, Garden of Medicinal Plants, I found this corroborating quote, by Dr Henry Oakley for my apparent debunking of the bitten root etymology: “Folklore attribute it as a cure-all which was so successful that the Devil bit off the bottom of the roots when he saw it growing down into Hades. However, the roots show no sign of such damage to support the myth.” 

It’s surprising how easily myths can come to be perpetuated online, isn’t it? Although it does leave me wondering just why it came to get this common, and scientific (Latin) name. Might its morphology have changed over decades, or might there be variants in other parts of the world, or different conditions, where the root system does looked as though it’s been chomped? Who knows.

It takes a bit of digging sometimes to get closer to the truth, perhaps…

Whatever, it seems that the plant’s known medicinal attributes certainly merit it having a place in our cae ysbyty, aside from its tremendous aesthetic and invertebrate interest.

HOWEVER. I think something else which is very curious about this plant may indeed still irk the devil in more contemporary times.

While separate sexes are thought of as the norm in much of the animal world, they are the exception in flowering plants.

It turns out that DBS is one of a very small population of angiosperm species (all flowering plants) which is gynodioecious (a new word for me). These odd angiosperms (I decided against using the adjective queer) produce both typical hermaphrodite flowers (as most flowers are, with both male pollen-producing anthers and female stigmas leading to ovaries and ovules for seed production)  AND also produce, on the same plant – not separate ones – flowers that simply have entirely female structures, the male parts of these flowers having been aborted.

Taxonomists have discovered that such plants, of which there are maybe only 2% of the total number of flowering plants, are widely distributed throughout the genera of flowering plants and tend to be in the terminal branches of plant evolutionary development. There are only about 6% of plants that are dioecious, with separate male and female flowers produced on different plants.

Many plant genera will just have a few species with these gynodioecious characteristics. This led evolutionary biologists to speculate that the mutations responsible for these peculiar traits have emerged on multiple separate occasions. But it’s thought that the ‘gynodioecy–dioecy pathway’ is one of the most important evolutionary routes from hermaphroditism to separate sexes in life on earth.

Even more curious, is how this process is thought to occur. Most of the scientific papers I dipped into were pretty incomprehensible to me, and the simplest, no doubt dumbed down, explanation that I read I’m including in part below (albeit slightly re-written by me for clarity). This explains just what a battle is going on at a cellular level:

“Gynodioecy develops as a result of a genetic mutation that stops a plant from producing pollen, but still allows normal female reproductive features to exist.

In all plants, the cell’s nuclear genes are inherited from both parents, but all the cytoplasmic genes come from the mother. This allows male sex cells (gametes) to be smaller and more motile while female gametes are larger. It makes sense for most plants to be hermaphrodites since they can’t move around and so are unable to find mates as easily as animals can.

Cytoplasmic male sterility genes exist, usually found in the mitochondrial genome, and become established when female fertility is just slightly more than the hermaphroditic fertility. Research has shown that in typical hermaphroditic plants, there are constant battles against organelle genes trying to kill their male parts. Male sterility genes can cause plants to grow anthers that are stunted or withered and as a result, do not produce pollen. In most plants, however, there are also nuclear fertility-restoring genes that counteract the work of the male sterility genes, maintaining the hermaphroditic state of the plant.

However, in just a few species of plants, the male sterility genes win the battle over the nuclear fertility restoring genes, and gynodioecy occurs.”

So it seems that in DBS, the plant’s male sterility genes have indeed won the battle, at least partially, and gynodioecy with female flowers, with shrivelled anthers, has become possible.

Who would have thought all this complex biochemistry and genetics underpinned such a beautiful range of native flowers with such wide insect appeal and replete with pharmacologically active chemicals of benefit to many animals.

But maybe, just maybe, in today’s world where I struggle to comprehend the extent to which gender issues in Homo sapiens seem to be an ever-present, inescapable subject of debate, the devil might have the last laugh. And decide to do a better job this time, and really get to grips with the DBS roots. 

Or then again, why wouldn’t he/she/it just leave things as they are. And smirk.

Julian.

Interestingly, other meadow plants including some plantains, and also Geranium sylvaticum, which I first saw growing in meadows in Northumberland are also gynodioecious.