Another bit of folk wisdom

I remember being told years ago that dropping an aspirin in a flower vase prolonged the life of the flowers, but always assumed it was one of those old bits of folk wisdom we didn't need to bother with any more. I have however dutifully poured into flower vases the contents of the little sachets you get with flowers from Tesco, labelled "lily food", "carnation food" etc, and wearily thrown the same flowers away after two weeks at the most.

But on the evening of December 2nd TAS and I came across these pussy willow twigs lying on the pavement near our house, brought them home and stuck them in a jar. Here they are on 7th January, still sparkling white and fluffy. But the remarkable bit is that on December 21st I wanted to brighten up the display a bit to decorate our Solstice Dinner that evening, so popped into Tesco, only to find that all they had left (apart from hideous Xmas bunches) were these rather manky carnations. Got them anyway, added some to the willow twigs and put the rest in another vase somewhere else. The latter got thrown out several days ago (so lasted maybe 10 days in all) but the ones sharing their now rather brown and scuzzy water with the willow twigs are still in full and perfect bloom.

Then it dawned on me: willow leaves and bark, as Wikipedia tells us, "contain salicin, a substance that chemically resembles aspirin" - so the old folk remedy is absolutely true! I shall now try chewing willow stems before my next long-haul flight.