I placed a few bare Orpine stems in a cup with some water back in May just to investigate what would happen and tonight I was encouraged by other house members to plant the results from the cup outside, which worked out fine with rain expected.
Some european superstitions from a few hundred years ago I find fun and will share with you tonight concerning Orpine (Sedum telephium) are (1) Leaving a plant in your home to keep folks healthy. (2) Place Orpine plant on your thatch roof to prevent a lightning strike. (3) Placing Orpine stems on your roofs to see if they will wilt and twine together to predict relationship compatibility. I’m sure there were plenty more superstitions surrounding a plant of this nature, though for me I admire Orpine’s ability to live green and its great tasting leaves and tubers.
In dark shady forest even this late in the summer, Orpine will often look like the photo above though there will be more distance between the sets of leaves and these forest Orpines will not reach the flowering stage often for many decades unless the surrounding trees are cut. ciao
1left 
I don’t know this cassula (however it is spelled…
I grow many here in Texas, the only one I know you can eat is the pursalane(the wild one, not the hybrid store bought) though I am not sure its in the same family….
good post, I hadn’t heard those superstitions, I like them, I collect superstitions, do you mind if i put these in my journal?
Thanks 1Left…learned something new today with you (again!)
Take Care..
)0(
maryrose
Yes maryrose you certainly may enter the Orpine folk-lore in your journal if you like. Northern Europe especially Sweden seemed to liked this plants properties alot.
Purslane is another super food, though not related to Orpine, they both share having very succulent leaves though. ciao
Fun superstitions. Orpine is one cool “puppy”. Hope your enjoying your weekend. 🙂
Very much so mobius, have a great one as well.
Re. Orpine: Its Danish name is Sankt Hans Urt, St Hans’ Herb (St. Hans is the saint of Midsummer). The poet Adam Oehlenschlaeger has written a poem about it, and the superstitions associated to it as late as the early 18 hundreds in Southern Scandinavia, when the women would plant wild Orpine in their kitchen patch:
1.
In the shadow we walk
among pale green straws,
Orpine we collect,
where the flowers stand.
Pretty little herb
stands so clean and pure,
stands so fresh and green,
annoticed, clandestinely.
2.
Behind the kitchen pitch
we put her,
from the crack in the strip of wood
she winds along .
If she takes root,
our destiny will be good.
If she dies in her place,
alas, we die, too.
3.
Then we shall not come
so glad, so happy,
here the following summer,
when the flowers grow.
Yonder, where the cross stands,
yonder in the churchyard
pale we shall lie.
Then it is over!
4.
Orpine we collect,
where the flowers stand,
among stems so straight,
among pale green straws.
Pretty little herb
stands so clean and pure,
stands so fresh and green,
unnoticed, clandestinely.
Thanks Ivan for sharing the poem and some Danish info on Sankt Hans Urt, really enjoyed reading it. ciao