Allelopathy, Invasiveness and the Novel Weapons Hypothesis

Introduction

"It is the nature of some plants not to kill, but to injure, by the odour they emit, or by the admixtures of their juices; such is the influenced exercised by the radish and the laurel upon the vine." —Pliny

Allelopathy is the production and release of chemicals that harm or otherwise decrease the fitness of other plants (Hierro and Callaway 2003). More simply put, allelopathy is chemical competition between plants (Ricklefs 1990). While the definition is sometimes broadened to include non-antagonistic relationships between organisms (Whittaker and Feeny 1971), I have restricted my definition to chemically-induced antagonism, whether direct, such as the release of a phytotoxin into the soil, or indirect, the facilitation of competition-reducing forest fires by eucalyptus trees rich in highly flammable oils (Much 1970).

Allelopathy as a mechanism for plant-plant interactions appears in a 1925 study by A. B. Massey that has been and is considered one of the defining experiments in the history of allelopathy, although one common direct mechanism for allelopathy (phytotoxins exuded into the soil by plant roots) appears in 1832 (De Candolle in Hieero and Callaway 2003, Whittaker and Feeny 1971), and other allelopathic studies were undertaken earlier (Schreiner and Reed 1907, 1908). The Massey study showed that walnut trees release toxins that impeded the growth of other plants, giving it a competitive advantage (Massey 1925 in Ricklefs 1990). It led to many other studies, about walnuts and other potential allelopaths, and the field peaked in the 1960s and 70s (Hierro and Callaway 2003) before growing criticism (e.g. Keeley 1988) began to decrease interest (Hierro and Callaway 2003). Studies of allelochemics never stopped altogether, though, and there have been several important studies in the past decade with more sophisticated and accurate methodology than earlier experiments.

Chemical competition in addition to resource competition has implications for population dynamics, in invasive species for example (Hierro and Callaway 2003), which has been the focus of many recent studies, producing very interesting results. Information about the role of allelopathy in some invasive species could contribute to more effective methods of controlling these weeds, as it increases understanding of the mechanisms involved in allelopathy and its role in the overall competitiveness of a plant. Experiments comparing the role of allelopathy in native versus invasive populations also further this understanding. Finally, understanding the function of allelopathy in native habitats also adds to our knowledge of community and ecosystem dynamics.

Starting with an analysis of problems in early allelopathic studies, my goal with this paper is to analyze the role of direct and indirect allelopathy in plant communities, the role of allelopathy in invasive plant species and the novel weapons hypothesis, and especially the role of allelopathy in several key invasive plant species, including Centaurea maculosa, C. diffusa and Alliaria petiolata.

Early Studies of Allelopathy

Most studies testing for allelopathy, including those from the 1960s, 70s and into the 80s, used bioassays: a solvent, often water, was run over the roots, stems or both of a potential allelopath, or the plant was crushed, either fresh or dried, and then soaked in water and filtered to create an exudate. There were other methods as well, bu the end result was a solution that was then added to seeds growing in Petri dishes on agar or filter paper, or an aqueous medium. Sometimes specific chemicals were isolated and used alone to identify the active allelochemical. Multiple plants were found to be allelopathic: Centaurea diffusa (Muir and Majak 1983), Eltrygia repens (Le Torneau and Heggenesse 1957; Weston et al. 1987), Parthenium hysterophorus (Kanchan and Jayachandra 1980; Pandey 1994) and Sorghum halepense (Abdul-Wahab and Rice 1967), for example. Certain studies even seemed to find that most plants were allelopathic, directly or indirectly by affecting soil biota, to the point where experiments would find allelopathy in thirteen out of twenty, ten out of twelve and fourteen out of fourteen species (Rice 1964). Suspicious growth habits combined with potentially phytopathic chemicals isolated from an exudate of the plant were considered enough to definitely determine allelopathy in a plant (Muller 1965, 1966).

Criticism over these methods began to emerge. Bioassays are insufficient evidence of allelopathy because they do not factor in environmental factors other than the possible presence of allelochemicals, and they do not accurately represent field conditions (Keeley 1988). Chemicals regularly cited as allelopathic might not persist long enough in the soil to have a significant impact on plant growth: phenolic acids (cited as potential allelochemicals in Sorghum halepense (Abdul-Wahab and Rice 1967), Adenostoma fasciculatum (Kaminsky 1981) and Parthenium hysterophorus (Kanchan and Jayachandra 1980)) were found to persis in the soil for only hours: they could only have an important allelochemical effect if they emerged at a very specific point of plant development, for example the peak germination point of a major competitor (Ohno 2001). Another study supports these results, showing that the activity of phenolic acids was only allelopathic on germination paper, and that even greatly exaggerated levels of the chemicals had no effect on plants growing in a soil substrate (Krogmeier and Bremner 1989).

Soil itself significantly lowered allelopathic effects to the point of negating them completely in multiple experiments. Euphorbia esula and Bundas orientalis were both shown to be allelopathic in bioassays, but exudates added to plants growing in a soil medium had no allelopathic effects, both because of microbial activity in the soil and because of the soil structure itself: soil binds up allelochemicals much more effectively than an aquatic medium does (Le Tourneau and Heggeness 1957; Dietz et al. 1996). Another plant, Adenostoma fasciculatum, produced phenolic acids but never introduced enough of them into the soil to be phytotoxic (Kaminsky 1981). Allelopathy was clearly notone of the forms of competition for these plants, even if they contained chemicals that were allelopathic when applied in artificial conditions at concentrations that might be impossible to obtain in the field, even under optimal conditions. Bioassays were simply inaccurate: Stowe (1979) found that seven identified allelopaths did not follow the distribution patter that their alleged phytotoxicity should have produced. In contrast to this, Wardle et al. (1996) had opposite results on the reationship between bioassay-determined phytotoxicity and their result on the growth of Carduus nutans.

Growth patterns in field conditions, such as apparent inhibition of growth around the potential allelopath, or monospecific stands, are often interpreted as evidence of allelopathy. It can be difficult to differentiate between the different forms of competition (chemical versus resource) by these methods, and there are often more factors that must be accounted for. In one experiment where Eltrygia repens was found to be allelopathic in bioassays (Weston et al. 1987; Le Torneau and Heggeness 1957), a negative correlation between plant competitor biomass and proximity to the allelopath was found; however, the role of limiting resources and resource competition is unspecified (Weston et al. 1987).

The most famous example is a series of experiments on the role of allelopathy in the bare zones around certain desert shrubs in California (Salvia leucophylla, Adenostoma fasciculata and Artemisia californica) (Muller 1965; Muller 1966; Bartholomew 1970). Muller (1965) found that chemicals isolated from the shrubs were phytotoxic (although not necessarily under field conditions), and concluded that the bare zones surrounding the shrubs were caused by an allelopathic affect (1965; 1966). Bartholomew (1970) found that grazing and foraging by rabbits, mice, birds and other small animals had a significant effect on plant biomass, and that these animals stayed close to the protective shelter of the shrubs, increasing herbivory in these areas. Furthermore, he found that annual plants would grow in a purportedly allelopathic bare zone if animals were excluded. There were more mechanisms at work than simply allelopathy.

Refinements in Allelopathy Experiments

Higher standards for evidence of allelopathy began to be developed. Choesin and Boerner (1991) developed three criteria that must be met: firstly, the chemical must enter the soil in significant amounts; secondly, it must persist in the soil; and thirdly, it needed a mechanism through which to encounter the other plant. Bioassays did not satisfy these developing standards.

An alternative to adding allelochemicals to an aqueous growing medium or agar plates is to add the chemical(s) to soil. This has been used to test the effects of plant extracts on nodulation in legumes (Rice 1964), although this sort of experiment requires determining a concentration of allelochemicals (and translating that to soil concentrations) that resembles that of field conditions (Callaway et al. 2008), often difficult, especially since soil microbes may break down some allelochemicals (Vivanco et al. 2004) and natural concentrations of chemicals may be unknown unless the plant has been very rigorously studies; even then, numbers may be conflicting (Callaway et al. 2008; Bais et al. 2003).

Similarly, mulching plants with leaf litter from a potential allelopath, mimicking the decomposition of biomatter from plants in the field showed allelopathy in Cirsium arvense (Stachon and Zimdahl 1980) and Euphorbia esula (Steenhagen and Zimdahl 1979). The decomposing leaf matter specifically of Carduus nutans was found to be allelopathic in field tests (Wardle et al. 1994). In another variation on these types of soil tests, soil samples taken from either wild or cultivated stands of the potential allelopath are mixed with another substrate or used alone, which has shown allelopathy successfully (Steenhagen and Zimdahl 1999; Dietz et al. 1996). Sterile soil or soil inoculated with specific soil biota can also be pre-cultivated with an allelopath and then re-planted with the test plants after the allelopath has been removed (Callaway et al. 2008).

One final soil-based method of experimenting on allelopathy is to plant the species to be tested together in a soil medium (He et al. 2009). This can be useful in certain, specific situations, but the obvious problem with it is that, normally, it does not differentiate between chemical and resource-based competition, since a decrease in growth is more likely to be from a plant being out-competed for resources such as light and nutrients than the result of phytotoxins. Activated carbon becomes an effective way to differentiate between these effects.

Activated carbon absorbs or removes all or most allelochemicals from soil or other growing mediums (Le Tourneau and Heggenesse 1957; Rice 1964). It does not affect seed germination significantly, and insignificantly reduced seed germination or growth in some field experiments, but did not give any advantage to non-allelopathic plants being tested (Prati and Bossdorf 2004; Ridenour and Callaway 2000; Callaway and Aschehoug 2000), making it an effective way to test for allelopathy. Since the activated carbon will greatly reduce or negate any allelochemicals present, adding it to a pot with both an allelopath and a competitor will show to what extent the effects are caused by phytotoxins, and the carbon can be added to soil to provide a control that has almost identical conditions (Prati and Bossdorf 2004; Callaway and Aschehoug 2000; Ridenour and Callaway 2000; Rice 1964).

Finally, the use of a "stairstep apparatus," or a system of plants growing in sand substrates in pots (that is, the allelopath in one area and the other plant(s) in another, so that there is no root-root contact, to prevent resource competition) connected by a system that flushes water over their roots, spreading any potential allelochemicals throughout the system (Bell and Koeppe 1972; Stevens and Tang 1985). Potential concerns with this method, other than the difficulty in setting it up, is the effectiveness of sand in absorbing allelochemicals when compared to soils found in natural habitats, and the concentrations of the phytotoxins, both because of the substrate and because of the water flow.

These new methods of testing for allelopathy have caused large improvements in the results attained, even if they are still imperfect. Despite this, Petri-dish bioassays remain popular because of their relative ease and simplicity (Robers and Anderson 2001), and because they allow for the isolation of specific chemicals (Vaughn and Berhow 1999). Bioassays also continue to be used as a supplement to more sophisticated experiments, or as a precursor to further investigation (Yamamoto 1995).

Direct Allelopathy

Direct allelopathy is direct chemical warfare: a phytotoxic chemical is released, often into the soil through the roots but also through other means such as toxins in decomposing leaf matter, that negatively impacts other plants. This is the best-studied form of allelopathy, and many plants have demonstrated it: Acroptilon repens (Alford et al. 2009), Anthoxanthum odoratum (Yamamoto 1995), Bidens pilosa (Stevens and Tang 1985), Centaurea maculosa (Bais et al. 2002, 2003; Ridenour and Callaway 2000), Centaurea diffusa (Vivanco et al. 2004), Cirsium arvense (Stachon and Zimdahl 1980), Euphorbia esula (Steenhagen and Zimdahl 1979), and Setaria faberii (Bell and Koeppe 1972). Many of these do not have isolated allelochemicals identified, but some research has been done on this: (±)-catechin from Centaurea maculosa, especially the (–)-catechin portion (Bais et al. 2002, 2003; Alford et al. 2009; He et al. 2009; Thorpe et al. 2009); coumarin from Anthioxanthum odoratum (Yamamoto 1995); sesquiterpine lactones from Parenthium hysterophorus (Kanchan and Jayachandra 1980) and C. diffusa (Muir and Majak 1983) which also produced 8-hydroxyquinoline (Vivanco et al. 2004); and 7,8benzoflavone from Acroptilon repens (Alford et al. 2009). As previously mentioned, phenolic acids are common potential phytochemicals, although their allelopathic potential under field conditions is unclear (Abdul-Wahab and Rice 1967; Kaminsky 1981; Ohno 2001; Krogmeier and Bremner 1989). Isothiocyanates such as allyl isothiocyanate and benzyl isothiocyanate (Vaughn and Berhow 1999) are tied to Alliaria petiolata and other Brassicaceae (Choesin and Boerner 1991; Vaughn and Berhow 1999). All of these have shown at least some direct allelopathic effect, although many have not been thoroughly tested, especially in conditions approximating those that would be found in the field.

Indirect Allelopathy and Microorganisms in Soil

Indirect allelopathy has been mentioned previously in the form of wild fire encouragement in Eucalyptus species (Mutch 1970). Most recent studies on indirect allelopathy, however, focus on the relationships between allelopaths, soil microbes and other plants. Allelopathic effects on other plants because of interactions with soil microbes has been found in Aristida oligantha (Rice 1964), Adenostoma fasciculatum (Kaminsky 1981), Centaurea diffusa (Vivanco et al. 2004), Alliaria petiolata (Callaway et al. 2008; Roberts and Anderson 2001; Stinson et al. 2006) and C. maculosa (Alford et al. 2009; Carey et al. 2004; Bais et al. 2002, 2003).

Adenostoma fasciculatum was found to form associations with microorganisms that producedp phytotoxic chemicals instead of being allelopathic in and of itself (Kaminsky 1981), but it seems to be mostly an exception. The relationship is unclear for several species, such as C. diffusa, where sterilizing soil suppressed the allelopath to varying extents depending on the population it was taken from, possibly because of differing abilities of soil biota to process the allelochemicals produced (Vivanco et al. 2004). The presence of a fungal pathogen in the growing medium of C. maculosa caused an increase in the concentration of allelochemicals, although it did not inhibit the growth of the pathogen (Bais et al. 2002).

Aristida oligantha reduced nodulization of legumes and inhibited nitrogen-fixing and nitrifying bacteria (Rice 1964). Similarly, legume species were found to be particularly resistant to allelochemical effects caused by Acroptilon repens (Alford et al. 2009). In a more sophisticated, recent series of experiments, the allelochemical (±)-catechin from C. maculosa was found to affect nodulation as well, and to negatively impact the growth of Rhizobia--although some species seem to metabolize the allelochemicals (). To complicate things even further, a study by Carey et al. (2004) found that Centaurea maculosa may use arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to "steal" carbon from Festuca idahoensis. The intereactions between soil biota and allelopaths are clearly complicated.

Alliaria petiolata also seems to use indirect allelopathy to increase its competitiveness. It prevents germination and colonization of abruscular mychorrhizal fungi (Roberts and Anderson 2001; Callaway et al. 2008; Stinson et al. 2006), and in the field, high Alliaria densities resulted in a lowered mychorrhizal inoculum potential (Roberts and Anderson 2001). Stinson et al. (2006) found that it was indirectly allelopathic, slowing growth and decreasing germination in trees, by negatively affecting arbuscular mychorrhizal fungal relationships. Further evidence of the effects of this fungal disruption is found in how the allelopathic effects of Alliaria were found to be ineffective or supportive of the growth of non-mycorrhizal plants (Callaway et al. 2008).

Allelopathy and Invasive Plants: The Novel Weapons Hypothesis

The novel weapons hypothesis is that plant communities co-evolve in species- and population-specific ways, so that allelopathy is countered by chemical resistances in the native ranges of a plant. However, when a plant is introduced to a new area, the vegetation is naïve to the chemical weapons of the invaders, granting them a sensitivity not present in species or populations with a history of proximity. This, rather than or in addition to predator release, drives invasiveness in certain species (Callaway et al. 2008). There is strong support for this theory in three primary species: Alliaria petiolata, Centaurea diffusa and C. maculosa. A fourth species, Solidago candensis, shows more complicated patterns of regional differences, involving allelochemicals, the origin of the allelopath, the orgiin the affected species and the origin of the soil biota (Abhilasha et al. 2008). Still, biogeography is clearly an important element in its allelopathic effects.

North American species (from the invasive range of C. diffusa) are much more sensitive to its allelochemicals (including 8-hydroxyquinoline) and less effective competitors than parallel European spcies from its native range (Callaway and Aschehoug 2000; Vivanco et al. 2004); there is also evidence that soil biota are better able to metabolize 8-hydroxyquinoline in European soils than in American ones (Vivanco et al. 2004). Centaurea maculosa exhibited very similar results (Thorpe et al. 2009; He et al. 2009; Bais et al. 2003) and Alliaria, although unrelated, showed the same patterns (Callaway et al. 2008; Prati and Bossdorf 2004). Alliaria allelochemicals were also more effective against North American arbuscular fungi, supporting indirect (fungicidal) allelopathy only in North America, further evidence of the novel weapons hypothesis and its role in the associations between allelopaths and soil biota.

Conclusion

While the role of allelopathy has been overstated in the past by inaccurate experiments, recent studies show that allelopathy may play an important role in some invasive plant species due to a chemical naïveté in invaded communities, either in the plants themselves (direct allelopathy) or through their indirect associations with nitrogen fixing bacteria, arbuscular mycorrhizae fungi and other soil biota: the novel weapons hypothesis. Three primary invasive spcies, Centaurea maculosa, C. diffusa and Alliaria petiolata show strong support for both allelopathy and the novel weapons hypothesis.

This has many ramifications for conservation. As all three of the primary species used as examples are extremely invasive, there are many conservation efforts to control or eradicate them underway. If the role of allelopathy and naïve communities in their success as an invader is misunderstood or otherwise unaccounted for, it could impede attempts to control the invasiveness; for example, the introduction of a natural predator may not have as significant effects because its invasiveness is not entirely due to predator release.

Many questions remain about the extent of allelopathy both in known species and in other species, especially other invasives. The role of soil biota and allelopathy is also unclear in many cases. Further experimentation should be done to test the novel weapons hypothesis, and the interplay of factors between different populations of soil microorganisms, allelopaths and invaded or native plants.

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Bertsolaritza

Bertsolaritz is a Basque oral tradition, a sort of formal, culturally-embedded poetry slam, where a bertsolari (poet-musician) composes and sings a bertso, coming up with words (improvised) to go with any number of traditional tunes. There are ritualized challenges and competitions, a number of different types and ways to perform.

It's unclear how old the bertsolaritz is; there are records back to the start of the 1800s, but since it was oral and not written, and the Basque country and culture is so ancient, it could be older than that. The best-known cultural peak is the early 1900s, when "bertso papers" were published. There was a dip in bertsolaritz during the 1930s and 40s during the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent repression of non-Spanish cultures within Spain--regions with a history of autonomy, often their own individual language (Basque/Euskal, Catalan, Valenciana, Gallician/Gallego) and a distinct cultural identity.

This can still be seen in modern Spain, where you have regionalism instead of nationalism--unless maybe the national soccer team is doing especially well that year. I lived in Navarra for a year, one of the last regions to pledge allegiance to Spain: the crest of Navarra makes up a quarter of the crest of Spain, the lower right-hand corner. A citizen of Navarra is more likely to fly a Navarran flag than a Spanish one, likely to consider themselves Navarran than Spanish--while if you asked someone from my home state, Washington, what they are, they'd almost definitely label themselves American. It's a very different mindset.

To go back to bertsolaritza, there was another upswing in its practice and popularity during the 1950s. At this point Ferdinand Aire Etxart, called Xalbador, was a practicing bertsolari, very famous. He represented the lower/Southern Basque Region, in Spain: he was born in a Navarran village. At some point in his life he left for the mountains and dedicated his life to bertsolaritza.

Xabier Lete (Oiartzun), a Basque poet, singer and writer widely respected for his contributions to Basque literature (posthumously winning a Spanish national prize for literature in 2009), wrote a bertso for Xalbador on his death in 1976. The following is the Basque-language version:

Adiskide bat bazen
orotan bihotzbera
poesiaren hegoek
sentimenduzko bertsoek
antzaldatzen zutena.

Plazetako kantari
bakardadez josia
hitzen lihoa iruten
bere barnean irauten
oinazez ikasia...ikasia

Nun hago, zer larretan
Urepeleko artzaina
mendi hegaletan gora
oroitzapen den gerora
ihesetan joan hintzana. [Repeat]

Hesia urraturik
libratu huen kanta
lotura guztietatik
gorputzaren mugetatik
aske sentitu nahirik.

Azken hatsa huela
bertsorik sakonena
inoiz esan ezin diren
estalitako egien
oihurik bortitzena... bortitzena

Nun hago, zer larretan
Urepeleko artzaina
mendi hegaletan gora
oroitzapen den gerora
ihesetan joan hintzana. [Repeat]

I was able to find a (quite probably unreliable) Spanish translation, which I then translated (roughly and ham-handedly) into English:

I have a friend soulful and sensitive
Transformed by the wings of poetry,
By the verses arisen from a profound emotion--
A singer that left plazas frozen with loneliness,
That learned from pain
To weave words and to speak contentedly
From the incorruptible truth of his inner self.

Where are you now, in which meadows,
Shepherd from Urepel?
You who fled
To the high peaks,
To the tomorrow that persists in memory.

You freed your song, escaping the fence,
Searching for freedom
Beyond the shackles and limitations of your body,
Turning your last breath to the truest verse,
The most convincing shout
Of the hidden truths that can never be spoken of [by others].

Snow

Last night, sometime after two in the morning and before seven, it snowed. Everything is very pretty and bright outside, even though the trails are covered with footprints and there's not even enough snow to cover the grass. When I was (significantly) younger I read a poem that's stuck with me--or at least the last line has. The poem itself is somewhere below mediocre, and apparently from a greeting card collection or an anthology of Christmas card poetry? I'm not quite sure. (I found a reference and the full text here).

"Despite the forecast's promise,
It didn't snow that night;
But in the morning, flakes began
To glade all right.
Not enough to cover roads
Or even hide the grass;
But enough to change the light."

Say what you will (and I have plenty to say) about the use of "glade," but I just can't forget the very last line. But enough to change the light. That's what snow does: reflects light around, even when it's clouded over, until everything seems different--lighter, brighter, fresh, new. Even if there's only a little tiny bit of it.

The other thing I love about snow is the smell of it. On very cold nights, or when you go outside first thing in the morning after it's snowed, you can smell: bright and cold. Sometimes when it doesn't snow, and it's just cold outside, you can smell it, too. I guess it's my version of the smell of rain, which I don't have strong associations to: I'm from the Pacific Northwest, and we don't get torrential downpours. We get drizzle, and either the smell's not there or it's so prevalent that I don't even notice it. I think it's the former.

Either way, I didn't smell rain until a chemistry lab this fall: we were taking a spectrographic reading of ozone, which required making ozone and then bottling it. The teacher let us smell it: the smell of rain. Free oxygen radicals created by high energy breaking apart a stable O=O (O₂) molecule into its components, and then the unstable free radicals joining a whole O₂ molecule to create ozone, O₃. The smell of rain is ozone, and it seemed incongruous in a classroom full of students trying to get spectrometers to analyze light absorbtion or whatever else. It was a little bit surreal.

Faith

I just came back from singing at a gospel concert. It was a religious experience. I was moved--by the spirit, by God, by whatever you want to call it. I felt it, profoundly. Now I'm finishing an essay about allelopathy and the novel weapons hypothesis. It will incorporate critique about the effectiveness of bioassays in determining allelopathy, discussion of forms of allelopathy other than phytotoxicity, and community-specific allelopathy and how that relates to several specific theories about plant communities.

I get a certain number of questions about how faith and science can coexist in my life. There seems to be this idea that science is all cold rationality (and good science mostly is that) and that religion is inimical to realism and hard facts--and religion is, at its roots, about faith, which requires an absence of definitive proof.

But I think that limiting yourself to one or the other is a little sad. I can believe in God while I'm carefully investigating the role of arbuscular mychorrhizae fungus in the invasive potential of Centaurea diffusa, and it will affirm my faith in God.

To me, the fact that everything is is the greatest miracle. Nothing is more spectacular than everything--every living and non-living thing, outer space and all the stars including our own, the earth we live on. It's incredible. A God that can create that is something to believe in.

And it doesn't have to be that, a few thousand years ago, God appeared and, boom!, created the Earth, exactly as it is today, only maybe with less carbon dioxide. And it only took seven days.

A God that can create evolution is something greater to me. A God that is in every natural process, that is every natural process--in gravity, and in the scientific explanation for gravity, in natural selection and photosynthesis (photosynthesis is so incredible) and Hadley cells and everything else--that's what I believe in.

And God is in everyone. Everyone. One of the tenets of my religion (I'm a Unitarian Universalist, and we don't have much but I believe in it) is "the inherent worth and dignity of every human being." To me, that's because God is in all of us. Every day. When I'm driven to create, that's God speaking through me. When I'm working to unravel the mystery that is our every-day life, that's God, too. God is in art and music and teaching and everything else that inspires people, but it's in biology and chemistry and anthropology and particle physics. And every-day things--doing the dishes, being nice to people, waking up every day. Ever felt like you've touched something greater than yourself? Had a moment where you knew what to do, intrinsically, or a moment of divine inspiration? Just a time when you made a difference?

To me, that's God. That's religion. And that's how I can believe in science and all that airy-fairy supernatural stuff at the same time. I just don't differentiate.

Allelopathy and Methodology

Sometimes you find what you look for. Sometimes it's accidental, or incidental: like measuring light, which is either a particle or a wave, depending on the test used, because the form of measurement defines it. Sometimes it's just bad science.

In the 70s, allelopathy gained a lot of attention. The science of chemical warfare between plants (the release of toxins into the soil by one plant that negatively affected another), it's a pretty fascinating topic--a lot of people like a little danger or excitement in their science, and the plants are essentially poisoning each other.

The field was started in 1925, when A. B. Massey published "Antagonism of the Walnuts (Juglans nigra and J. cinerea) in Certain Plant Associations." It demonstratively showed the phytotoxicity of chemicals contained in walnut leaves on other plants. There are definitely walnuts out there with no plants growing around their base--although shade could just as easily play a role in this as allelopathy.

But there's just as many walnuts who do have plants growing around their bases. Regardless, allelopathy as a theory peaked around the 70s, garnering a lot of attention and proving that many, many plant species were allelopathic in effect.

The problem was in the methods of the study. The most common (both then and now) test for allelopathy is a petri-dish bioassay: a solution of chemicals from the plant is attained by washing it in a solvent, usually water. The concentration of the potential phytotoxins can be very high. Then it's added to a medium--water or agar, not dirt--and seeds are added and sprouted. Usually, there's lowered germination rates and slowed growth--possibly deformities in the roots or browning. Or death. The solution is clearly not very good for the plants in question.

At the peak of things, just growth habits could be considered proof of allelopathy. One of the better-known studies in allelopathy is the experiments run by C. H. Muller in California on a shrubby species of Salvia* during the 1960s. There were obvious bare zones around the clumps of shrubs. Muller's experiments indicated allelopathy: after all, sages have some pretty strong chemicals in them--that's what makes them so aromatic (and therefore delicious.)

Further experiments were run by Bartholomew, Halligan, and Christensen and Muller during the 1970s. They discovered that the very shy rabbits of the region lived in the tangled shrubbery of the salvias, and that they didn't stray very far from the shrubs to eat, ever. When Bartholomew ran a study where rabbits, birds and other relatively large animals were excluded from the area surrounding the shrubs using cages, the grass grew just fine. The rabbits had been the ones eating the grass, causing the dead zone--they wouldn't go any further away from the shrubs, and so they ate all the tasty grass down to the ground in the areas they considered safe.

Bioassays aren't as dramatic an example. But there's strong evidence (see Stowe's 1979 paper "Allelopathy and its influence on the distribution of plants in an Illinois old-field") that almost any plant will show up as allelopathic if the secondary metabolites it contains--all the volatile chemicals, the flavenoids and sesquiterpene lactones**, the phenolics--are isolated and concentrated enough.

But a lot of these chemicals aren't going to enter the soil at all. A lot of them are highly volatile, evaporating or breaking down very quickly--before they can build up to levels that can damage plants. Even the soil itself will absorb some of the chemicals, making it inaccessible to the plants. The microorganisms in the soil can break down allelochemicals. A 1957 study by Le Tourneau and Heggeness ("Germination and growth inhibitors in leafy spurge foliage and quackgrass rhizomes") proved that leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) is toxic in bioassays but neutral when the plants are grown in soil--especially if it was non-sterile soil still rich in microorganisms.

Things get exaggerated. And it's done nothing but disservice to the field of allelopathy. As methodology approves and allelopathy is re-approached as a potential component in the success of certain plants (especially specific invasives--more on this and the Novel Weapons Hypothesis at a later date) instead of a unified, universal theory, this history of exaggeration and poor experimental design continues to haunt the study of allelopathy.

Allelopathy really shouldn't be discredited entirely. Its role was overexaggerated in the past, but it can still be a significant factor. Two particular invasive plants, garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) and certain knapweed species (Centaurea species among others, especially C. maculosa), are almost definitely allelopathic--experiments have been done to study the effects of the allelochemicals in soil, not just in bioassays, and the behavior of the chemicals in field soils has been studied--they know that (+/-)-catechin persists at levels high enough to be phytotoxic.

Part of the problem lies in the struggle to design a good experiment to test allelopathy. You need to mimic, as closely as possible, the behavior of the allelochemical in the field. At the same time, you need to be sure that you're measuring true allelopathy instead of just competition--you can't plunk a bunch of garlic mustard into a planter box with some wheat in it and see what happens. Even if allelopathy plays a role in the success of invasives, it's also almost definitely because they are more fit an organism--they're highly evolved to take advantage (and control) of resources.

There are ways around it, but most people haven't taken the time. Bell and Koeppe's 1972 study "Noncompetitive effects of giant foxtail on the growth of corn" used a "stairstep apparatus" where a nutrient solution filtered through the roots of both the potential allelopath (giant foxtail or Setaria faberii) and those of the test subject (corn--Zea mays), but the plants themselves were in different containers, preventing competition from playing a role. The Steenhagen and Zimdahl study "Allelopathy of leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula)" (1979) took soil samples from areas with very high populations of quack grass (Agropyron repens) and incorporated it into the soil of potted tomatoes, where it had strong negative effects on their growth. In 1980 Stachon and Zimdahl's study "Allelopathic activity of Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) in Colorado" used soil mulched with leaves in addition to bioassays--it showed allelopathy in both sets of experiments. More recently, Abhilasha, Quintana, Vivanco and Joshi's 2008 study "Do allelopathic compounds in invasive Solidago candensis restrain the native European flora?" used soil that had had allelopathic Solidago canadensis growing in it--for the controls, they added activated carbon, which absorbs/deactivates organic chemicals (like phytotoxins) without affecting important nutrients like nitrogen. (More on this method in Le Tourneau and Heggeness's "Germination and growth inhibitors in leafy spurge foliage and quackgrass rhizomes" (1957) paper.) Again, activated carbon significantly improved the growth of plants, indicating allelopathy.

So the poor science that's been the norm reflects badly on the field as a whole. Allelopathy isn't some sort of miracle answer for complex plant interactions, and it's certainly not that common, but at the same time it's not totally insignificant in every situation, and it's definitely a factor in certain plants. As methodology improves, no doubt there's more to discover about it.

*Before somebody brings up the drug reference: Salvia is the genus name for sage. The sage you use in cooking? It's a salvia. So are many common garden shrubs. None of them are psychoactive. Neither is the shrub we're talking about. Sorry.

**Whenever I try to spell "sesquiterpene lactones" I inevitably end up writing "lactates." Which would be something else entirely.

Sometimes, research is lovely. Everything goes where it's supposed to. You come up with a manageable number of on-topic but diverse papers that provide the groundwork for a comprehensive and in-depth paper that still manages to stay around the right length.

This never happens to me, of course.

Instead, I start researching allelopathy--in essence, chemical competition (think of it as chemical weapons) in plants. I find almost nothing and too much at the same time. It's too broad a subject to really cover in one paper, and I end up researching allelopathy and its role in invasive plant species, since there's some wonderful recent information on the role of allelopathy in the invasive tendencies of several Centaurea species (knapweed) and in Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard).

Then I realize that half the ideas that I want to track down are in other papers. Ones that I do not necessarily have access to, especially not in the next week. At the moment, I am attempting to track down papers referencing other invasive plants with a potential allelopathic effect. There were four for Eltrygia repens, for example. Korhammer and Haslinger 1994 needs to be requested from the government. I couldn't find anything more than citations for Osvald 1948 and Welbank 1960. Weston et al. 1987 is only available as an abstract or a "free preview," because "SpringerLink" sucks. A lot. And I am not requesting a $34 paper from my library for an introductory-level essay. For another invasive, Cyperus rotundus, another two are only available as abstract-plus-preview because of SpringerLink's fees; another one also needs to be requested from the government. The remaining two papers I found citations for are only referenced in citations. That is zero papers that I can actually read in full.

I haven't even been able to find "Antagonism of the walnuts (Juglans nigra L. and J. cinerea L.) in certain plant associations." Why do I want it? It's essentially the grandaddy of allelopathy papers. There was, apparently, an 1832 theory put forth by a De Candolle, but what people pay attention to is the 1925 study about walnuts by A. B. Massey. And I can't find it. Anywhere. It probably wouldn't even be that helpful, but it's irking me. (I also want to know the methodology, because a large part of my paper is going to end up revolving around the novel weapons hypothesis, or the idea that plant populations have evolved a resistance to allelochemicals produced by the plants, but only in the native areas, which is why you see the overwhelmingly aggressive behavior of the plants in the invaded communities--they don't have any genetic defense against it. There's some fascinating evidence going on there.)

So, now I'm off to go track down the Letourneau and Heggeness 1957 study "Germination and growth inhibitors in leafy spurge foliage and quackgrass rhizomes." It'll be a party.

Bibliography to "Kill the Hare that Steals your Milk by Beating its Vomit"

Works Cited
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Briggs, Robin. Witches & neighbors the social and cultural context of European witchcraft. New York: Viking, 1996. Print.
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Kill the Hare that Steals your Milk by Beating its Vomit: Common Defenses against Witchcraft in Europe

As you study the folklore and anti-witch superstitions of European countries, you begin to notice more and more common themes. For example, in Sweden, the mjölkhare, or milkhare, a hare bound to a witch in a satanic pact (or a transformed object that may or may not be in the shape of a hare like the Icelandic tilberar or “carrier” (Benedikz 14), brought to life by the devil or unholy acts and rituals, such as feeding it blood (Nildin-Wall and Wall 67)) steals milk from cows by suckling them, bringing what it consumes back in its stomach to the witch who owns it, sometimes vomiting up some of the milk as it goes, if it’s taken in too much; this is actually a type of fungi (Nildin-Wall and Wall 72). In Serbia, they have witch-vomit, a fungus resembling the throw-up of an unweaned child and believed to be the remains of a child’s heart after a witch had eaten it and then thrown it up, since she couldn’t digest it fully. It was used to cure sick children under a curse when properly prepared (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). However, the excrement of witches in other parts of Serbia was a white, foamy liquid found in the woods that would kill you if you touched it (Vukanović 16, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I”).

In Ireland, the witch herself turns into a hare to steal milk (Kinahan 258, “Connemara Folklore”), as certain Scandinavian witches did as well (Nildin-Wall and Wall 67), and she could also steal butter more directly by gathering dew from the grass on the first of May (Duncan 185, “Further Notes from County Leitrim”), among other means. Dogs couldn’t catch Irish witches when they were disguised as hares, but they could injure the hare, in which case the witch would be recognizable from her injury (Duncan 183-184, “Folklore Gleanings from County Leitrim”). In England, a witch transformed into a hare can only be shot with a silver bullet made out of a sixpenny piece (Banks 74), or by a sixpenny piece marked with a cross (Gregor 284). In Scandinavia, only a silver bullet would hit a witchhare or milkhare. (Nildin-Wall and Wall 69).

These examples come from, variously, northern, western and eastern Europe, and despite the disparate origins, there are obviously common themes and similarities: hares, silver, milk and various types of fungus all feature, intertwined. This pattern holds true for cultures all across the continent when you look at charms, habits, practices and beliefs used to counter witchcraft in day-to-day life. From Finland to Russia to Spain, there are numerous similarities between different defenses against witchcraft.

As already mentioned, witches were often associated with hares, but there were also other animals. In Ireland, hedgehogs were often associated with witches (Kinahan 104, “Notes on Irish Folklore”), while in Normandy, having toads found in your house was considered strong evidence for witchcraft in and of itself (Monter 578-9). In England, wasps, flies and bees were common witch familiars, and ferrets were also sometimes claimed as familiars, similar to the weasel, stoat or polecat skins worn by witches in certain areas (Newman 22-23); another source names cats and hares as the animals witches most often transformed into, and says that dogs, mice, crows, rooks and bees were less common but still present (Murray 188); in Essex, it was believed that all witches had white mice as familiars (Maple 181). In more modern times in Cambridgeshire there are reports of a witch turning into a pig or having a pig as a familiar, and being associated with pigs in general and defending them (Wherry and Jennings 188). Witches were also accused of causing plagues of lice and other vermin (Newman 21). In France, witches often turned into goats or sheep (Murray 188). Romanian witches, or strigoi, turned into dogs, cats, wolves, horses, pigs or toads (Eliade 158), while Serbian witches turned into butterflies, hens or turkeys, while in other parts of the central Balkans they could also turn into toads, owls, various black birds, eagles, bitches, cats and mice. Croats believed that witches turned into cats to “suck” people at night, causing swollen breasts. In Herzegovina it was believed that witches could grow bat-like wings, when anointed with special ointments made out of ingredients like human fat cooked in baby’s blood with herbs, or the concentrated excrement of black swine (Vukanović 11-12, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I”).

On the other hand, animals could also have apotropaic power against witches. In Spain, animals with points were powerful: the horns of a stag, boar tusks, rooster spurs, crab claws and stag-beetle horns were all made into amulets (Hildburgh 79); in Macedonia, wild boar tusks were made into horse-collars to protect the animals from witches and other malignant supernatural beings (Vucanović 236, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). In Montenegro, on the first of March, when witches were especially active, the ashes on the hearth were stirred with goat or cattle horns (Durham 190). In Croatia, wolf fur and teeth were used to protect children from witches, while in Serbia cat’s claws and fur were used similarly. In the same area, the anus of a chicken was considered to have protective powers when prepared right. In Albania, snake’s heads were used as charms when the snake was caught on certain days (Vuckanović 227, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”).

Witchcraft was also meant to hurt animals. Domestic animals, especially cows, were the focus of maleficium across the entire continent. For the most part, witches were responsible for three main types of evil-doing: cursing or bewitching humans, causing illness, bad luck, and the death, illness or injury of children especially; causing bad weather, hail, storms or draughts; and hurting or harming livestock, other farm animals and, especially, cows, or otherwise harming milk production. As previously mentioned, witches stole milk from cows by using familiars or enchanted objects (Nilden-Wall 67; Kinahan 258, “Connemara Folklore”; Duncan 185, “Further Notes from County Leitrim”). They could also sicken animals, or cause them to behave oddly or become possessed by demons or the devil. For example, in England it was believed that a witch could put up barriers that horses or cattle would not or could not cross unless it was broken with a charm, or by placating the witch who had put it there (Banks 75

Because so much maleficium was focused on farm animals, there were multitudes of ways to break the curses, block them, or prevent them. Horses stopped in place by a witch could be freed by passing a knife blade underneath their hooves (Banks 75). In Scotland, cows were sensitive to witchcraft after calving, especially for the first time: they would be bound with an apron worn by a married mother temporarily, and then protected with a “seal” or charm for several weeks; sometimes, some of their hair would be cut off to protect them; and they would also be given water with a live coal dropped into it to drink (Gregor 278).

In Scotland, burying a live cat and ox in a pit with salt would cure sick animals, transferring the curse on the herd to the two dead animals (Blécourt 298). Similarly, in England, the ears of sick animals would be burned and then buried, destroying the sickness along with the body parts, healing the animal itself (Briggs 124), or parts of a pig’s ears and tail would be burned (Newman 28); in Scotland, a sick cow would be measured, and the part of the tail longer than one span would be cut off and burned (Gregor 282). The heart of a cow was sometimes pierced with nails and then burned to drive off a curse or to break it (Briggs 183). In certain parts of England, cutting hanks of hair off of a sick cow and burning them could cause the cow to get better (Rudkin 254). In Germany, if you had a bewitched ox you would kill and skin it, and hang the hide in the window to prevent the disease from spreading (Briggs 181); in the Holstein region specifically, to prevent infection of the rest of the herd, a sick cow would be beheaded. The head would be smoked and then put in a window, looking away from the house towards the neighbors, which would deflect the illness towards other people’s cattle. The body was buried. Straw that had been urinated on by milkless cows was also burned to return their milk (Briggs 181-183). Along the same lines, burning a witch in effigy could break her powers; giving cursed milk that had sickened a woman to an animal, killing it, would cure her (Monter 586); and milking a cow in effigy could make it give milk again (Gregor 284).

Just as killing, destroying or hurting something representative of the curse could break it, so could it hurt the witch who had cast it. It was believed that, for example, boiling the milk of a sick cow would harm the witch, because some part of the witch’s magic was bound to the cow to cause the illness, and so “hurting” the milk would in turn cause the witch pain, because of that bond (Blécourt 298). There are a multitude of similar beliefs: in Scotland, the milk was heated with pins, forcing the witch to reveal herself (Gregor 279); in France, a witch could be hurt by scalding milk from a sick cow with a heated poker (Briggs 182); in England, a witch killed a flock of goslings, and by baking two live ones in an oven, she was discovered when she started to scream in agony, becoming covered in burns. There were incidents very similar to the latter example involving sickly piglets, ducks that wouldn’t lay, and scoring a sick pig with a poker (Newman 28).

The continuation of this theory was that it was possible to hurt a witch by hurting her familiars. Whipping the “milk” left behind by milkhares (actually a gelatinous fungus, as mentioned) or burning it would force animal’s owner to appear, pained by the abuse even when it wasn’t the witch herself who had stolen the milk while transformed (Nildin-Wall and Wall 72), as was sometimes the case. Hurting an animal associated with the witch would hurt her in turn.

This also applied to humans suffering witchcraft. For example, in England witch-bottles could be used to hurt or kill a witch, or to force her to break a curse. You took the urine of a victim of witchcraft, and some nails, pins, thorns or needles, sometimes bent and sometimes with bits of the victim’s hair or nails, and put them together into a jar. If the jar was buried or hidden, it would cause the witch strangury or difficulty urinating or expelling waste, until they came and begged to be released, at which time they could be forced to break the curse. If the jar was heated until it exploded, the witch would die. (Merrifield 195). Older witch-bottles had pieces of felt or cloth cut into the shapes of hearts, and one was found with the actual heart of an animal, also pierced with pins, possibly a hare—a creature closely tied to witchcraft (Merrifield 202). A written spell to protect against witchcraft specified that a witch-bottle be prepared with a frog’s liver pierced with pins and a toad’s heart pierced with thorns; there are obvious similarities here to the burning of a cow’s heart spiked with nails mentioned previously. Many witch-bottles, especially older ones, were buried in doorways, under hearthstones and in paths, indicating a possible relationship with German protective jugs, which were buried underneath the house. (Merrifield 202). As late as the 1930s, people in parts of England were aware of witch-bottles as a cure against witchcraft, prepared with water and the victim’s hair; however, speaking to the witch would break the spell (Wherry and Jennings 189). In Germany, putting the urine of a sick person in a glass with wax and cloth would make the witch appear, and she could then be prevented from leaving (Briggs 181). Urine could also reveal whether or not a person had been cursed, depending on how it reacted when put on a hot iron (Briggs 176).

There are parallels to the difficulty urinating caused by English witch-bottles in other cultures. In Germany, a bucket of water underneath the bed would have the same effect, forcing the witch to come (Briggs 181). Along similar lines, once a year in Bosnia the young men of each village would inflate a goat skin, and witches would arrive, begging them to release it because it caused them to swell as well. They could then threaten to reveal them to the village if they committed any evil that year (Vukanović 222, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). In Esslingen, there are reports of a cursed girl’s excrement being burned, causing the witch’s face to become burned as well.

Pins, needles, thorns and other sharp objects were commonly used to protect against witches, as modeled by the witch-bottles. In England, locks of hair from the neck and the body were buried with pins and needles to break a bewitchment (Rudkin 249). Serbians sometimes named children “Trnovica,” meaning “thorn,” to protect them against evil, including witches (Vukanović 230, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). Trees with thorns were also considered to have the power to ward of witches (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). In Morocco, thorns, bristles and needles were protective amulets against witches, and in Spain broken needles and pieces of broken mirror served the same purpose (Hildburgh 79). Scratching witches with a pin until they bled would break a curse and cure an illness in England (Tongue 324). Other times it was specified that it needed to be a silver pin, and that it must be kept covered in the witch’s blood, to keep the witch from cursing you (Gregor 279). Another variation was that seeing the witch’s blood after scratching her was enough to break a curse (Newman 22). Sticking a pin into the shadow of a witch (Briggs 130) or her footprint would cause her pain, as if it had pricked her flesh (Wherry and Jennings 188). In Ireland, having some of a witch’s hair could make her powerless against you (Newman 20).

Scissors could also be used to protect against witches or to enact counter-curses. A pair of scissors was opened in the shape of a cross over doorways in Spain would prevent a witch from going through it (Hildburgh 79), and in England scissors were sometimes used with sieves to identify witches in a form of divination (Blécourt 298). In Serbia, babies were crossed three times with scissors before being laid in their cradles, and scissors were left under their pillows, sometimes open, or they were left next to the infant in the cradle, along with other objects (Vukanović 229, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”).

Knives, too, were used as a defense against witches. As previously mentioned, in England passing a knife underneath the hooves of horses who had been bewitched so that they wouldn’t move forward would break the curse (Banks 75). In Scandinavia, cutting butter with a knife would show whether it had been made from milk stolen by a milkhare, since that would make it bleed (Nildin-Wall and Wall 75). Knives were especially important in the Balkans, where black-handled non-folding penknives, made according to specific rituals (IE made from one piece of iron or steel at night by a naked blacksmith and his wife, etc.) were believed to be very powerful defenses in particular, but even a regular knife would be kept by the bed so that if a witch came at night to choke someone, her cheek could be cut so that she was recognizable the next day. Knives were kept in cradles to protect the baby, or placed under the pillow or cradle along with other sharp objects such as carding combs. In some areas, sickles were hung over the door for the first forty days or six months of a child’s life. (Vukanović 229-230, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”), to keep witches from entering the house. In Ireland, a knife was also described specifically as black-handled when it was used to kill a log transformed into a monster or demon (Duncan 178, “Further Notes from County Leitrim”).

Certain metals, specifically iron and silver, and sometimes copper, could protect against witches or defend against them, independently of whether or not they had a cutting edge or point. Sometimes, these metal objects would be specifically imbued with power, like the hearth-chains of the Balkans, which could prevent a witch from leaving the house if turned upside down or tied into knots; scare away witches when dragged through the streets on Christmas Eve; and keep witches away from the livestock if tied over the hearth (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). Silver coins were specifically mentioned as the way to kill a witchhare in both Scandinavia (Nildin-Wall and Wall 67) and England (Gregor 284). In Germany, a shilling would protect the milk of a cow (Gregor 278). Iron witch-bottles were found in the Fens of England (Porter 121), and in Iceland a witch who transformed himself into a leather sack full of water was destroyed when he was beaten with an iron bar specifically (Craigie 226). (It is interesting to note that Iceland and Normandy are the two areas in Europe where the majority of witches were male; for this reason, I used the male pronoun here.) In England, iron was believed to turn away the evil eye (Wight and Brown 134), and a Romanian charm against witchcraft and evil specifically mentions iron tools used to destroy the devil (Gaster 132). In England, there were reports of a male witch or wizard who was buried with an iron stake driven through the coffin and corpse to make him “lay quiet” (Rudkin 255). Similarly, in the Balkans, dead witches rose to do evil after they had been dead and buried ten years, and so the tendons of a suspected witch were cut with a black-handled knife to keep her from leaving her grave (Vukanović 22, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I”).

Metal was often used to keep witches from entering or exiting a building, such as putting scissors, knives or other objects over a door, and it was often used in combination with ways of calling witches to a house, either by hurting them by hurting something they had cursed (for example, scalding what milk can be gotten from a cursed cow) or by other means. Non-metal objects were used as well. Crosses of rowan or mountain-ash wood were placed over stable doors on certain days in Scotland, and over the doors of houses on other days to keep witches from using them for midnight rides (Gregor 277). In Germany, putting the urine of a sick person in a glass with wax and a cloth, similar to a witch-bottle, would cause the witch to appear or arrive, and she could then be kept inside the room by putting a broom, bread and salt over the doorway (Briggs 181). In parts of the central Balkans, witches are known to change into moths or flies and enter houses to suck peoples’ blood (Durham 190) and to steal milk. To protect against this, moths were caught and sprinkled with salt, and a charm said over them before they were released. The next day the witch would approach the house asking for salt, and she would be shown in and offered a seat and hospitality while someone tried to light her on fire with coals (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”).

Fire, salt and bread all figured regularly into protections against witches, combined with other elements of counter-curses or protections or alone. Fire stands out because witches were often burned, indicating a potential tie; but there were many other ways in which it appeared or featured. In Ireland coals were never taken from a house if a woman inside was sick because it would harm her further (Kinahan 257, “Connemara Folk-Lore”) and taking coals out of a house while someone was churning would keep the butter from forming. (Kinahan 258, “Connemara Folk-Lore”). To break a witch’s power to steal your milk in the Balkans, as mentioned, she was lit on fire when she entered the house (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). Also previously mentioned, cows in Scotland would be given water with coals dropped into it to protect them against witches (Gregor 278). Heating or burning animals associated with witches would cause the witch pain, as previously stated, and on at least one occasion, in Ireland, a hedgehog was burned as a witch after being observed to swim; they were animals associated with witchcraft, as they were believed to steal eggs and milk (Kinahan 104, “Notes on Irish Folklore”). In Normandy, objects that had been used to curse someone were burned to help break the curse (Monter 577). In England, a cure that healed a sick child was to throw anything found in his blankets into the fire—in this case, a toad (Briggs 209). In England, in more modern times, matches were believed to drive away witches, and especially crosses drawn with matches (Tongue 323). The color red, which may or may not be symbolic of fire, was considered protective against witches in Russia (Ryan 76), Scotland (Gregor 277; Goodare 304), and the Balkans (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Durham 191).

Salt also protected against witches, actively driving them away in England when carried around in a pocket, and blocking enchantments (Tongue 323). They were added to some witch-bottles, presumably to increase their potency or effectiveness. In Germany, salt and a shilling would protect milk, and salt around a churn would protect the butter (Gregor 278). As mentioned, salt was used to drive away and detect witches in the form of moths in the Balkans (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”) and also placed in cradles to help keep the infant safe (Vukanović 229-231, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). Salt, bread and a broom placed by the door in Germany could keep a witch from leaving a room (Briggs 181), and something stolen and eaten from a witch’s house in Lorraine (Briggs 127), sometimes specifically bread and salt (Briggs 179), would break a curse (Briggs 127).

Bread was also a common defense against witches, and together with salt it formed most of the forms of ingested counter-witchcraft, and ways to protect against curses, even when not eaten. In the Balkans, taking the first mouthful of food eaten at the end of the Lenten fast out of your mouth and then whistling through it later would allow you to summon witches (Vukanović 221, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”), and bonfires were built and a black hen roasted over them and then eaten on certain days of the year. Witches were believed to turn into black hens, and it symbolized killing (and then eating) the witch herself (Vukanović 224-225, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). In Russia, male witches known as koldun protected weddings from malicious “alien” witches from other villages, who would otherwise cause the bride to fart and the wedding party to turn into werewolves, among other calamities; part of this protection involved a ritual bath for the bride where the koldun wiped sweat from her with a whole raw fish, which was then cooked and eaten by the groom (Ryan 78-79). During the seventeenth century in northern Norway there were reports of “consuming” the knowledge of witchcraft through eating bread, beer or milk, among other substances. These occurrences can be linked to ergotism, or the incidental consumption of lysergic acid produced by fungal infections on certain grass species; LSD is a synthetic derivative of lysergic acid, and ergot is considered highly psychoactive when ingested (Alm 404-405). Garlic was considered a strongly apotropaic in the Balkans, and it was consumed in addition to being worn, placed in cradles and rubbed on the body, especially the armpits and nipples (Vukanović 221, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Vukanović 229, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). Interestingly, another plant in the Allium family, Siberian chives (Allium schoenoprasum ssp. sibiricum) were also believed to be apotropaic in Finnmark (Alm 410).

Garlic is just one of the many plants that were believed to provide protection against witchcraft. As previously mentioned, thorns were believed to provide protection against evil in the Balkans (Vukanović 230, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). The wood of trees with thorns, such as hawthorn, was especially prized for this reason, and cradles were often made out of it (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). Other trees with apotropaic power may include juniper, fir, oak, wild cornel or dogwood, hazel, lime wood, yew, ivy wood, (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”), fig wood (Vukanović 19, “Witchcraft in the Balkans I”) and golden willow (Vukanović 232, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). Rowan was considered extremely powerful against witches in Scotland where crosses were made out of its wood (Gregor 277; Gregor 284); in Ireland, rowan berries under a churn would keep witches from stealing the butter (Duncan 180, “Folklore Gleanings from County Leitrim”); in one Irish folktale, it was specified that witches cooked a dog on a spit of rowan wood (Newman 12). Herbs could also have powers, such as certain types of moss, coltsfoot, valerian, elecampane and bryony (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”), along with the aforementioned garlic. In Romania, nightshade was used to expel demons (Gaster 131).

To return to an earlier subject, many charms against witches involved putting something over the door to keep her in or out. In the Balkans especially there were charms to prevent a witch from leaving an area once she had been summoned, and other charms to reveal a witch while entrapping her at the same time. Some of the latter involved throwing an object imbued with power over a church during mass, especially an important mass such as the midnight Christmas mass. The objects thrown included a blessed log of fig wood; the bow or loop of a yoke for oxen, especially a black one, thrown once in some areas and three times in others; and a locked padlock that had been carried three times around the church. Other methods included turning around a tile on the roof of the church, sticking a pin into the threshold, circling the church with white thread, putting a certain type of moss over the door, and taking a specially made item such as a stool or a new kožuh (jacket) to the mass. This would either cause the witch to behave in a way that made her recognizable, or keep her from leaving the church, either by means of an invisible barrier or by causing her to become confused and unable to find the door or, in the last example, making her recognizable to the person wearing or using the object (Vukanović 19-20, “Witchcraft in the Balkans I”). A cross made out of pig’s bones tied with red thread could also keep witches confined within a church (Durham 191).

In these situations, the goal was not to catch the witch to kill her, but instead to break her power, because it would be lost when she was discovered or when she confessed voluntarily, and it could never be recovered (Vukanović 21, “Witchcraft in the Balkans I”). In the same way, in Normandy, a curse that was caused by being touched by a witch could be cured by a touch from the same witch (Monter 577). In Germany, summoning a witch who had caused an ill or divining who she was sometimes only led to asking the curse to be removed (Briggs 181); this was especially common in Luzern, Scotland and Bavaria (Blécourt 298). In some areas, such as the Balkans, discovering witches led to blackmailing them into leaving alone the discoverer’s family or village, lest they be revealed as a witch to the community (Vukanović 221, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Vukanović 222, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Vukanović 225, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”).

Finally, it’s possible to defend against witches using Christianity, often combined with other methods. Metal crosses, or crosses drawn with matches, or scissors opened into the shape of a cross are all overtly tied to Christianity. In Scotland, blessing a witch (“God save you”) would make her disappear (Gregor 284). Spoken charms drawing heavily from the Christian tradition were used to protect against witches and other forms of evil in Romania even if they also drew from pagan traditions (Gaster 129). Crosses would protect against witches in Russia (Ryan 72). In the Basque country, during a period of witch hysteria, children in multiple villages spent the night in churches and the houses of parish priests, where they would be blessed before they slept so the witches couldn’t steal them away in the night (Gifford 11); in a similar fashion but for different purposes, German child witches were incarcerated in part to prevent the “infection” from spreading (Roper 107). Still, it is interesting to note how little of the superstitions against witches were specifically Christian, considering the role of Christianity in witchcraft trials.
There are clearly strong similarities between beliefs centering around witches in Europe, specifically in the themes of protective magic, whether as objects or actions.

A Halloween Story

So they say that humans make such good mothers. I think we're terribly selfish when it comes to raising our young. We hardly ever die for our children.

Sure, we carry them for nine months. Which is a long time, both in terms of average gestation periods and just in terms of time itself. There are animals that are pregnant longer, of course, but there are a lot more that aren't. We can only have one at a time--usually--which just seems...inefficient. Oh, sure, there's the trade-offs between lots of offspring and a few better-cared for ones, but on a level that's more purely illogical, I think that more matters. Matters most, even, maybe.

But there are animals that do so much more. Salmon die to breed, after all. Like all semelparous animals, they give up their lives for their offspring. Their bodies start to decay as they move upstream. They'll beat themselves to death against dams, trying to get to where they can spawn. They fight to die, because before they die they lay their eggs. That next generation is the primary imperative. They know that they'll die either way, no matter if they've passed on their genes or not.

I like frogs. Some of them. Most of them just abandon their eggs, like so many animals. But others--they take very careful care of their young. Like the Surinam toad. After the eggs are laid--extruded--and fertilized by the male, they're pushed onto the female's back. Her flesh bloats to cover up the eggs, protecting them. Inside her, they can live and grow, taking their nutrients from her. You can see them moving underneath her skin--it ripples, her back filled with her young. After a lunar month, they break through her skin, tear through it, perfectly formed miniatures. Would you do that? Even if you could?

The gastric brooding frog eats its eggs. To protect them, she doesn't digest anything for the six weeks it takes her young to mature. She starves herself as the young grow big off of her own body, so big until eventually there's no more room for her lungs to expand. She's forced to rely on the barely-sufficient oxygen she can absorb through her skin, as she slowly starves. So much love. She suffers for them.

The giant pacific octopus, too, starves for her young. She lays her eggs in a carefully constructed cave, like precious little grains of rice--hundreds of them. Then she walls herself inside the cave, so that predators can't get to them; so that the currents won't wash them away until after they've hatched. She blows water over the priceless clutch, keeping them clean and oxygenated; she chases away or kills anything that might eat them. She doesn't eat. She's dead by the time they hatch, or shortly afterwards, but they wouldn't have lived without her.

Would you die for your children? Really? Would you have had them at all, if you'd known that it would, inevitably, cause you to die?

The caecilian's young eat their mother. They eat the skin off of her, in one species. In another, it's the lining of the oviduct. Like if your fetal child ate--for as long as eleven months--the lining of your uterus. Or if your clutch of precious babies swarmed over you every three days, consuming every inch of skin on you, and waiting only long enough for you to regrow it before they did it again. And again. Every three days, for months. You don't love your children so much.

It's what makes us weak. We don't want the pain, the blood and violence of birth. We want to be drugged until it doesn't hurt. We want everything clean and sterilized. Everything as much like surgery as possible--c-sections even for the women who don't need them. Sickening. You should bleed for your child, it's the only thing you can do. Give them your own flesh, it's all you really have to give. Milk is a sick, weak replacement for your own blood. For your life. That's how you give love.

Best of all are the parasitoids. The wasps and flies that give up their duties of mothering to someone else, someone who can give more. They lay their precious young, very carefully, onto the back of a host. A surrogate mother, an adoptive parent--the ones who really will give up anything, everything, for the child that's come into their care, even though it's not really their flesh and blood. That sort of altruism is--touching. Something worth emulating, replicating. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we were all so selfless? It would be. A better place.

The infant wasp hatches and burrows into its host. It eats it, piece by piece. Eventually the surrogate dies, but not before it's raised the wasp to adulthood. It hatches out of the husk left behind. The ultimate sacrifice. "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." And when you are eaten of, you're enacting the most sacred rite and sacrament--giving life to another. Even all your selfish whims are taken away, at the very end. You only want to do your part.

I feel it. I'm heavy with child; caring for them. Giving them everything I have to give--all of myself. Not in the transparent, weak way that people mean when they say it, but in a way that means more. Everything: flesh, blood and life. And at first I resisted, but it was only because I didn't understand. Now, I welcome the prick of each ovipositor--the laying of each new egg, ready to hatch open and begin its new life within me. It's been a while since one has come, though, which makes me a little sad. I'm getting close to the end, they can sense my imminent death; with almost preternatural intuition, the wasps know that I'm coming close to death, that my parasite load grew too high. I took on too much. Welcomed it in, once I realized what it all meant.

I am a city. A palace. A testament to divinity, to becoming something more. You won't understand until you've felt it. All the glory of motherhood, only more so. Because what I'm doing--it's truly laudable. There's no way to describe it. As my organs fall apart, as my flesh begins to rot away, I'm creating. Even second-hand--it's the closest I'll ever come to being the perfect mother. The one who will die for her children.

Inevitable.

I grew up on Where the Wild Things Are. We still have at least one copy floating around. I will forever remember it as one of my most-beloved childhood books, along with The Lupin Lady, The Children's Encyclopedia of Insects, and Good Dog Carl. (I have an autographed copy of Good Dog Carl. My mom gave it to me when I was 17 and in Spain on a year-long student exchange.) Where the Wild Things Are is probably the one book that has held up best.

With that in mind, my review, thoughts and reactions to the movie:

Where the Wild Things Are, as a book, is about being a child. A pretty normal child, at that, because I'm pretty sure almost everyone went through the out-of-control phase. And there are dark elements in the book, too, even if they're stronger in the movie: "I'll eat you up, I love you so." Love is scary. Love gets you eaten up. Hating someone--like your mom, when she sends you to bed without any supper--is the flip side of loving someone.

In the movie, to me, the focus is more on the parts of yourself that scare you. Because the monsters really are scary--even when things are fun (and one of the elements of the movie that I liked best is how excellently they blur the line between having-fun roughhousing and what happens when things go too far, when people actually start being hurt) there's that element of danger. You can see it sometimes, in Max: he's afraid, at least a little, because the Wild Things are so much bigger and stronger and more dangerous than he is. Even when he's their king, even when they're happy he's there, they could kill him accidentally. In most of the scenes, even the happy ones, there's a moment where he hesitates.

Essentially, though, this is a children's movie (although I'm not sure it's appropriate for most children--it's like a movie that doesn't really have a targeted age range) about fear and anger. Which is interesting, especially since there aren't any answers and the movie doesn't have something that I'd call a happy ending; more like bittersweet.

I think that fear and anger are important parts of childhood, though, ones that get brushed over. To quote my my favorite review of the ones I read, "Movies that promise to make you feel like a kid again tend to overlook how miserable childhood can be. ...This isn't a zany, faux-heartwarming slapstick comedy with adorable creatures and a plucky youngster at the centre."

That's why the scariest monster, Carol, who's also the second main character (after Max, of course) is the most frightening of the monsters. He's the one who's closest to Max: he doesn't know how to reach out to the others, especially the ones he wants to like. He's out of control--he destroys things without thinking about the consequences, while the others watch. He destroys things he's built, things that are very important to him, because he's angry. There are definite parallels between his actions and Max's--breaking things that you can't fix and then regretting it. He's the one who's going to eat Max even after they become best friends, and that scares even him. Carol is the part of Max that feels most strongly, that reacts most violently and mostly lovingly.

And that's where the journey-of-self-discovery comes into play, of course, because Max recognizes himself and etc. But it's far more subtly done than in most films, and it's not solving all the problems in the movie. There are no quick fixes in this world--you can't be the king of the Wild Things, you can't solve everything, you can't be never unhappy. Max goes home--and his supper is still hot (well, reheated)--but he's still going to be angry. He's still going to blow up, he's still going to be lonely, he's still going to be a too-sensitive child growing through difficult times.

I find it interesting how a lot of reviews mention that it's, and I quote a specific line but it's definitely a trend even in the positive reviews, not particularly deep or daring stuff." Because, really, I disagree. Simple doesn't mean it's not important--I think it usually makes things more important. And there is a definite lack in childhood movies that don't sugar-coat things. What Maurice Sendak's book wasn't, and what the movie wasn't, was a happy story where the Wild Things are fun and harmless--toothless. They're scary, especially in the movie. It's all about not being able to have everything you want. It's about being unhappy, and being lonely. That can be profound, especially when it's for people who haven't hit puberty yet, a supposedly young and innocent age. That's bullshit. I was systematically and aggressively bullied--to the point of requiring therapy--by my classmates in the second grade, and it was, unquestionably, the worst time of my entire life, even if you count my years as a depressed middle schooler, and the winter of my student exchange, when I was away from my family for Christmas for the first time, still unable to speak decent Spanish, being bullied in school, depressed and seriously sick.

The Max in the movie is not as well-adjusted as the Max in the book. In the book, Max is just hyperactive, out of control in the way that children that age can be; I was one of them, and out of control in similar ways. In the movie, he's hurting more. It's not, thankfully, another one of those stories where he's escaping the trauma of his Horrible, Abusive Family. His sister loves him, even though she's growing up. His mom loves him. He's over-reacting when he runs away, when he lashes out--that's a lot of the point. It's not justified. It's made understandable, it's not excused. It is, in fact, made explicit that he needs to grow up. Although it's a little cliche to put in the divorced parents/single mother/absent father/new-significant-other situation, they at least don't go overboard, amen thank-you and hallelujah, and it's something I can definitely understand.

Most of the critics I've read* seem to have issue with the middle section of the movie, because it's so helter-skelter and unfocused; they disagree with the arrangement of the action. I think that's one of the strengths of the movie: clearly, these people don't remember preteen sleepovers, where everything's wonderful at night, there's cake and dancing and movies and giggling and gossip--for me, at least; or video games and pizza and laughing and music, if you're my brother. But the next morning, everyone's tired. Someone gets upset. Things have dragged on too long. Nobody's really sure what to do, anymore, everything fun got done the night before. Maybe a squabble or two starts out. Things disintegrate. That's the exact path followed on the island, only more so--that sort of energy and excitement can't be maintained, and it turns out that not every day can be like that, filled with fun and excitement, with no conflict.

I am not particularly clear on what the point of the owl scenes were.

On a final note, there is a very disturbing paper or three on the implications of the KW-swallowing-Max scene.

*My normal approach to deciding opinions on movies is to see something, mull it over, maybe talk about it with others I've seen it with, think more, then read what others have had to say. In this case, critics and professional reviews because that's what's available. Then, I see how I react to what they have to say, which helps me to more accurately identify what my own opinions are, and why.