This is a common plant of wet places, damp verges, edges of forest rides and soggy soil generally. You can see plenty of this in drainage ditches by the roadside in summer. The systematic name for this plant was once Spiraea ulmaria and it yielded a substance known as Salicin from which Acetylsalicylic acid was first derived. This new substance was called Aspirin after the "Spiraea" genus name of Meadowsweet.

Meadowsweet is found throughout the British Isles and Ireland.

College Valley, Cheviots, Northumberland 17th July 2006

Added on 14th September 2004, amended on January 26th 2005, updated 16th January 2009, updated 31st March 2010