🍃 Flora of Middle-Earth 🍃 by rosecatillustration
Seregon was a plant that grew in rocky soil and produced blood-red flowers, which gave it its name. Seregon was noted as the one plant that mantled the otherwise barren head of Amon Rûdh.
Aeglos was a tall, thorny plant, similar to a gorse, but somewhat larger than that. Its sweet-smelling flowers were white, and from them it took its name: aeglos is Sindarin for “snow-thorn”. It was found on the lower slopes of Amon Rûdh, upon the surrounding moors, in West Beleriand and perhaps elsewhere.
Brambles of Mordor were ugly with foot-long thorns, which were sharp as the knives of the orcs that came from Mordor. Some of the thorns were long and sharp, meaning that they could puncture very deeply, while others were barbed, making them suited for rending the flesh if one tried to walk through them. They sprawled over the land like coils of steel wire. As Samwise Gamgee remarked, he hadn’t thought that any plants actually grew in Mordor, though had he been told that some do, the brambles were exactly what he would have expected of Mordor.
Lissuin was a fragrant flower of Tol Eressëa, and was said to bring the heart ease. It was one of the types of flowers brought by a ship of the Eldar to Númenor to grace the wedding of Aldarion and Erendis.
Elanor was a golden, star-shaped flower that grew in abundance in the forest of Lórien. Samwise Gamgee thought highly of the flower and, at Frodo’s suggestion, named his eldest daughter, Elanor Gardner, from it.
It was like “a pimpernel (perhaps a little enlarged) growing sun-golden flowers and star-silver ones on the same plant, and sometimes the two combined”.
They grew in sheltered places twisted tree-forms and stunted grey grasses grew. The leaves were shrivelled with Sulphur vapour and maggot hatchlings. They were the only plantlife that seemed to maintain more than a tenuous foothold.
Athelas, also known as Kingsfoil or asëa aranion, was a sweet-smelling herb with healing powers, such as curing wounds, poison and counteracting evil influence such as the Black Breath.
Niphredil was a small white flower that grew first at the moment of Lúthien’s birth in Doriath. It was also found among the golden trees of Lothlórien, thickest on Cerin Amroth, where some pale green varieties could be seen.
It was like “a delicate kin of a snowdrop.”
Simbelmynë was a small white flower that grew in particular abundance on graves and tombs, like the Barrowfield of the Kings of Rohan beneath the walls of Edoras; and most thickly on the grave of Helm Hammerhand. It was referred to as uilos when Tuor saw these flowers in the great ravine between the Fourth Gate, the Gate of Writhen Iron, and the Fifth Gate that was made of white marble, when he was making his way to Gondolin. Another Elven name for this flower was alfirin, which grew on the low mound that was the tomb of Elendil upon the summit of Amon Anwar.
It grew in turf but small and white like the wood anemone. Though the plant bloomed at all seasons, its flowers were not ‘immortelles’.
Mallos was a flower that grew in the vales of Lebennin in Gondor, described as having the shape and colour of a golden bell.
