Natur Cymru

A full version of this article appears in the magazine.

Unlike the rose, thistle and shamrock, the leek does not have the makings of striking iconography. It is a kind of bulbless onion with only a thick stem and a bunch of leaves for an artist to play with. The most promising things about it are the contrasting colours of green and white and the broad, reflexed leaves which looked well on the back of the one pound coin - though one can imagine foreigners being puzzled by it.

The leek is associated with a saint: Saint David, Dewi Sant. David was a holy man, a missionary and a founder of monasteries. Apart from that he was a vegetarian. He lived on nothing but bread, water, herbs (watercress has been suggested) and leeks. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, he was a strong, tall man and lived to a ripe old age. David was formally canonized 600 years after his death in 1120, but long before that he was remembered as a man in whom God’s power had worked wonders.

Why was Dewi Sant’s liking for leeks so significant? Perhaps one reason is that the leek was rightly seen as a healthy – in old parlance as a virtuous – plant. Quite extraordinary qualities were claimed for it. It was the original health food, high in fibre, good for purging the blood, keeping colds at bay, and for healing wounds. The leek also acquired mystic virtues. For example, girls who go to sleep on St David’s Day with a leek under their pillow will see their future husband in their dreams. It is tempting to assume that this applies only to Welsh girls. By way of its virtues, which contrast meaningfully with the plant’s insignificant appearance, the leek acquired a kind of vegetable sanctity. Like St David, it worked miracles.

As for the alternative St David’s Day emblem, the daffodil, it is simply a more convenient buttonhole. Unlike the leek it has no depth of history or folklore behind it, and apparently entered the liturgy of St David’s day as late as 1920. However, artists jumped aboard the daffodil express because it is an easier symbol to work with. Hence the postage stamps of George VI and our queen up to 1967 portrayed the daffodil, and not the leek, along with the thistle, rose and shamrock. But the national colours of Wales are leek-green and leek-white, not daffodil-yellow.

If leeks were indeed a staple food of Dark Age and prehistoric Wales, where are their wild ancestors, the wild leeks? Their supposed ancestor, Allium ampeloprasum is now classed as an archaeophyte on the assumption that it was introduced to the island of Britain as a crop-plant. Yet in Wales, where you might expect it to be, it is virtually confined to two islands, Holyhead Island and Flatholm. On the latter its pink, fuzzy tennis-ball heads are one of the sights of the island, growing thickly around the lighthouse and former army barracks, and showing that under the right conditions the wild leek can persist and thrive. Are these leeks descended from monastery gardens, or are they true natives? It is unfortunate that there are no wild leeks growing near St David’s or on the sites of his other monasteries. Like that other ancient wilding, woad, the wild leek has all but vanished from the landscape.

Not that this matters a great deal. The emblems of the United Kingdom are flowers of the mind, not of the landscape. Their power comes from feeling, not from botanical science. The leek expresses things about the Welsh which are clearly timeless. What are they exactly? Frugality and practicality must be part of the leek’s ‘message’. So is the mystic element, the sense of a world beyond immediate experience. The colours of the leek are satisfying, whether you see in them sheep on grass, or snow on the green hills or the Welsh archers at Agincourt. And perhaps most importantly the leek symbolizes the ascetic life of a great patriotic saint, worthy of emulation, who lies at the very heart and foundation of Welsh life and culture. The power of the leek is something that is felt by the heart, not the head; and only a Welshman can feel that.

Peter Marren has written fourteen books about history and natural history.