The solstice stain

The herb is named for a date, not a place. It flowers around the feast of St. John, the twenty-fourth of June, which is to say it flowers at midsummer — the bright five-petalled stars with their burst of stamens arriving just as the longest day tips over into the slow decline toward winter. People have gathered it at this exact moment for a very long time, hung it in doorways and worn it against the dark. You do not have to believe any of that to feel the rightness of bringing the solstice indoors in a jar.

If you mean to make something of it — a tincture, an infused oil — the harvest is simple but particular. Wait for a dry, sunny morning and go out once the dew has burned off, because water on the flowers will turn an oil rancid before it ever turns red. Take only the top third: the flowering clusters, the fat unopened buds, and a few of the small upper leaves. The buds matter most. Pinch one and you will see why the timing is named for a saint and not a season — a deep blood-red bleeds out across your fingertips, the pigment the old herbals called the herb's blood. That stain is the whole point. A plant that does not mark you is not quite ready.

What you do next depends on your patience. For an oil, pack the fresh flowers loosely into a clean jar, cover them with olive oil, and stand it on a sunny windowsill; over two or three weeks the oil draws the red out of the blossoms and turns the colour of garnet. For a tincture, the same fresh flowers go into a high-proof spirit and steep in the dark. Either way the rule is fresh, not dried — the red does not survive drying, and without the red you have only a yellow flower in a jar.