I'd really be interested to hear peoples suggestions for traditional songs which focus on plants, or contain snippets of folk tradition pertaining to plants.

I was watching a Ray Mears programme ages ago, and he was with an aged Aborigonal lady who was collecting Yams (I think), and as she was digging she was singing her tribes traditional song for gathering the Yam.

Later when our cuddly Mr. Mears was chatting with his charming old lodder sidekick, and they were eating some no-doubt hideous native foraged food (a la Richard Mabey), they were discussing how our islands (UK) must have had their own equivalent, traditional ceremonial type songs - for gathering Hawthorn and the Chestnut for example, and so on.

I was looking for YouTubes for the Ray Mears programme in quesion, but couldn't find it. I did however find this, which is on a similar tangent. And indeed quite wonderful in its own right: Shamans plant song from the Amazon

Anyway I was chatting to a friend of mine about this programme and some of the thoughts it raised, and we both began wondering what those long-lost songs might possibly have been like?

And are there any fragments or 'echoes' remaining in some of our traditional folk songs, which might give clues, or evoke that very ancient folk memory?

I wonder if anyone here has any thoughts?

Or would simply like to throw up some traditional songs that focus on plants, and on plant-based folk-lore?

Ta, Rosie