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Chamaenerion angustifolium is a perennial herbaceous flowering plant in the willowherb family, Onagraceae. It is known in North America as fireweed and in the British Isles as rosebay willowherb. It is also known by the synonyms Chamerion angustifolium and Epilobium angustifolium. It is native throughout the temperate Northern Hemisphere, including large parts of the .
The inflorescence is a symmetrical terminal raceme that blooms progressively from bottom to top, producing a gracefully tapered shape. The flowers are in diameter, slightly asymmetrical, with four magenta to pink petals and four narrower pink sepals behind. The protruding style has four stigmas. The floral formula is ✶/↓ K4 C4 A4+4 or 4+0 Ğ(4).
The upright, reddish-brown linear seed capsule splits from the apex and curls open. It bears many minute brown seeds, about 300 to 400 per capsule and 80,000 per plant. The seeds have silky hairs to aid wind dispersal and are very easily spread by the wind, often becoming a weed and a dominant species on disturbed ground. Once established, the plants also spread extensively by underground roots, an individual plant eventually forming a large patch.
Two subspecies are recognized as valid:
Fireweed is an effective colonizer; it may not be present until after a fire has moved through a landscape. Because of its very high dispersal capacity, "propagule pressure" from its regional presence will let it quickly colonize a disturbed area. Once seedlings are established, the plant quickly reproduces and covers the disturbed area via seeds and rhizomes. It is somewhat adapted to fire as well and so can prevent the reintroduction of fire to the landscape. Fireweed is well adapted to seed in severely burned areas as well, because the mineral soil that is exposed due to the removal of organic soil layers provides a good seedbed.
In Britain the plant was considered a rare species in the 18th century, Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey, and one confined to a few locations with damp, gravelly soils. It was misidentified as great hairy willowherb in contemporary floras. The plant's rise from local rarity to widespread abundance seems to have occurred at the same time as the expansion of the railway network and the associated soil disturbance. The plant became locally known as 'bombweed' due to its rapid colonization of bomb craters during World War II.
Bears and elk are known to favor the plant as food.
Traditionally the young shoots are collected in the spring by Native American and Siberian people and mixed with other greens. As the plant matures, the leaves become tough and somewhat bitter. Fireweed petals are made into jelly, and mature leaves are dried for use as tea. Roots are traditionally eaten raw by Siberian Native people. When properly prepared soon after picking they are a good source of VitaminC and Vitamin A. The Denaʼina add fireweed to their dogs' food. Fireweed is also a medicine of the Upper Inlet Dena'ina, who treat pus-filled boils or cuts by placing a piece of the raw stem on the afflicted area. This is said to draw the pus out of the cut or boil and prevents a cut with pus in it from healing over too quickly.
The leaves can be used to make tea. In Russia, fireweed is made into a tea known as Ivan-Chai (Ivan-Tea)AUGUST 01, 2020, Julia Prakofjewa, Raivo Kalle, Olga Belichenko, Valeria Kolosova, Renata Sõukand Re-written narrative: transformation of the image of Ivan-chaj in Eastern Europe, Heliyon, RESEARCH ARTICLE, VOLUME 6, ISSUE 8, E04632, or Koporsky tea (from the town of Koporye, where it has been produced since the 13th century). They use it as highly prized medicinal herb too. The popularity of fireweed tea perhaps stems from the similarity of its production to that of common black tea ( Camellia sinensis), leading to a richly flavoured and deeply coloured herbal tea, with no caffeine. It is commercially sold in a blend with mint or thyme. Fireweed tea is high in iron, copper, potassium and calcium.
The honey produced from fireweed is highly valued for its quality. Most fireweed honey is produced in locations in cool climates, such as the Pacific Northwest in the United States and Scandinavia in Europe.
Fireweed's natural variation in polyploid has prompted its use in scientific studies of the possible effects of polyploidy on adaptive potential and species diversification.
Because fireweed can colonize disturbed sites, even following an old oil spill, it is often used to re-establish vegetation.
It is also grown as an ornamental plant. A white form, C. angustifolium 'Album', is listed by the Royal Horticultural Society.
As the first plant to colonise waste ground, fireweed is often mentioned in postwar British literature. The children's novel Fireweed is set during the Blitz and features two runaway teenagers who meet on bomb sites where fireweed is growing profusely. (1969). 9781471401749, Hot Key Books. ISBN 9781471401749 Another children's novel, A Reflection of Rachel features a protagonist attempting to restore an old garden that used "Rose Pink Willow Herb" as an ornamental plant and mentions its notoriety for growing on abandoned bomb sites. (1967). 9780333037232, Macmillan. ISBN 9780333037232 Cicely Mary Barker's 1948 book Flower Fairies of the Wayside included an illustration of 'The Rose-Bay Willow-Herb Fairy', with the accompanying verse "On the breeze my fluff is blown; So my airy seeds are sown. Where the earth is burnt and sad, I will come to make it glad. All forlorn and ruined places, All neglected empty spaces, I can cover—only think!— With a mass of rosy pink."
Rosebay Willowherb was voted the county flower of London in 2002 following a poll by the wild plant conservation charity Plantlife. County Flowers page Fireweed is the floral emblem of Yukon.
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