What Herb Are You?

Last week, I had a thought … it didn’t even hurt much. Those of us who work with plants on a regular basis know they have they own personalities. Recognizing this, I asked my Facebook and Twitter peeps the question, “If you were a plant/herb, which would you be and why?”  Before I tell you what others said, I’ll offer up my answer:

It would depend on my mood at the time you asked the question. On a normal basis, I’d probably say Rosemary because although I’m a little prickly, I’m generally a rather nice person, willing to help when and where I can. On one of those days, however, I’d go with Oleander: pretty to look at but touch me and I’ll bite. I’ll admit, I’ve been having more Oleander days than Rosemary lately. It is, after all, tax season!

On to others’ answers:

• Basil: easy going, relaxed, can be by itself or with others, lots of different flavours, liked by most.
• Rosemary: Fragrant, thoughtful, prickly at times. Doesn’t over winter well.
• I would choose to be a Castor plant: beautiful, complex, potentially beneficial and positively deadly. Which one I actually resemble: Stinging nettle: helpful to those with knowledge, painfully annoying nuisance to those who don’t understand me.
• Mullein, I think. Grows in whatever soil it lands on, starts out smallish and pretty and ends up tall and funky, versatile, and small birds like it.
• Rosemary. Tough in most conditions, immensely useful and versatile and smells divine!!!
• Vanilla. sweet and expensive unless u chew the outside
• I would be the osage orange. Good strong wood, thorns for protection, very useful, but totally under utilized these days. Kind of describes me somewhat.
• Definitely I am a topiary Yew that is ancient.
• Don’t know which I would be but I’d like to be poison ivy, I like the idea of being able to get under the skin of people who annoy me and cause them pain
• Blackthorn. I wanna be a blackthorn shillelagh and knock some sense into a few heads today.
• Rose: beautiful, aromatic flowers with enough thorns to let people know I need to be handled lovingly; and left to my own devices, I produce rosehips, which are healing internally and externally.

I had an ulterior motive for asking. In Ogre’s Assistant, Book Two, Amy’s going to learn a little about herbs … mostly in the magical sense but for those of us who work magic, it bleeds over into the mundane world, too.  Although I know the personalities of the herbs I work with, I’m curious about not only the ones I don’t, but what others’ perceptions might be to incorporate into her lessons. (You didn’t know about Book One? Read about it here.)

So, if you were a plant/herb, which would you be and why?