Loves Me, Loves Me Not

[Robinia]

Does anyone know where the stripping petals from a daisy  (loves me....loves me not)  first started?  Terrible waste of a flower!

[Clare A]

I haven't anything useful to offer, but to say that I don't know the origin, yet can remember doing this as a child (I'm 44), and that I recall no-one teaching us! It was almost as though it was something everyone had always known. It - and making daisy chains - certainly whiled away the boredom of fielding rounders!

Did you ever squeeze the base of wild clematis (bindweed?) flowers, saying 'Grandmother - pop out of bed!'? Or with certain types of grasses, 'Here's a tree in Summer (hold it up). here's a tree in Winter (strip the seeds), here's a bunch of flowers (show the stripped seeds), and here's an April shower (chuck the seeds over friend's head!).

[Robinia]

Thanks Clare!

I'm 50 & as you say it was something that everyone did.  Mind you, we did cheat - if it looked liked it was going to be 'loves me not' you just pulled the last two petals off together!

I never did the clematis thing - but I might now - & I'd forgotten all about  the rhyme!  Daisy chains, holding buttercups under your chin, 'Don't pick dandelions, you'll wet the bed!'.  What happened to all of that?  If you can find wild flowers now you can't pick them as they're rare.  I'm clearing a corner at the bottom of my garden this spring where I'm going to hopefully sow wildflowers & have a little pond for the frogs.