Horsefoot

When I was young in the south of Sweden, the Tussilago was the first and surest sign that temperature had reached a level high enough to allow us  staying out longer playing football or other spring games. We used it as an alias to dress in thinner, lighter clothes, even if it made us shiver towards the late afternoon.

Living in the north of Sweden for many years the small flower was still a true sign that warmer days was ahead, when it popped up along the roads in sunny slopes and ditches. Something happened in the body, the shoulders lowered and it became easier to breathe.

Now I live on Öland, a lime stone island in the southern Baltic sea where this flower is rarely seen, I don't know why. But today i saw one (1) example of the Tussilago farfara, growing next to The Pond, near to my old home. I immediately recognises the same body signals as I did as a ten year old, living in Skåne, down south. Physical emotions goes deep. 

We call it "Hästhov", 'Horse foot' (horse hoof), or "Hosthäva", the plant that cures coughing. In folk medicin you could make tea of it and drink it against bad cough.