The history of the viburnum, how it’s perfect for shooting things, and why songs about flowers can fuel a revolution.

“Oh, in the meadow a red viburnum has bent down low,
For some reason, our glorious Ukraine is in sorrow.”

— Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow

On a sunny Thursday afternoon in mid September 1991, about one month after the first website was created (info.cern.ch) and about one week before Nirvana’s Nevermind debuted, two German hikers, Helmut and Erika Simon were enjoying their last day of vacation trekking through the icy south Tyrolean Alps when they happened upon something most unexpected. Protruding unmistakably from the glacier coated rocks, some 10,500 feet above sea level, was a man, or what was once a man. The hikers, assuming they had found the remains of a recently deceased mountaineer, made a two mile detour to a manned hut to report their findings.

Otzi, the world’s most valuable caveman. *(For pictures of the actual (gross) Otzi, click* *here.*)

The path, the body, and the hut all skirted the Austrian/Italian border and authorities on both sides were notified. The Italian carabinieri showed no interest and the excavation was left to the Austrians who approached the task with what could only be described as reckless tenacity. A pneumatic jackhammer was employed which made little progress toward harvest and quickly ran through its compressed air supply, but managed to chew up the Iceman’s garments and pummel through his left hip before petering to a stop. Passersby were permitted to hack at the ice. At least one well intentioned effort involved gouging the floe with a nearby stick, which was later determined to be part of the hazel-wood and larch-wood frame of the Iceman’s backpack. As Bill Bryson puts it in At Home: “The volunteers, in short, were trying to dig out the corpse using his own priceless artifacts.”

The man, it turns out, was not the hapless modern day cragsman everyone was assuming. Found near him were personal effects including a rare copper ax, a flint knife, and a quiver, all suggesting a vastly more primitive age. He had fur leggings, bearskin shoes, two birchbark canisters, and a piece of ibex meat—personal effects that patently would not comprise a 20th century hiking kit. Radiocarbon dating would later show that the man, now called Otzi after the nearby valley of Otztal, died more than five thousand years ago and a CT scan revealed an arrowhead lodged in his back, likely the source of his undoing.

What made the find so remarkable was not simply that Otzi was pre-historic, but that this was not his burial ground, with precious belongings purposefully selected by peers for a more rewarding afterlife. This was a snapshot of a singular person in the moment, with all the clothes and tools he would have fashioned, and loved, and depended upon for survival. At once, and for the first time, we were able see entirely a fellow human as he lived in an inaccessibly distant time. Nothing so ancient and so complete had ever been found before.

Amongst Otzi’s belongings were a long bow, dagger, sheath, and 14 arrows. In all, his equipment made use of 14 different kinds of wood: Yew for the ax handle, hazel to reinforce the quiver, knotted basswood bark for a dagger sheath, etc. One broken arrow was repaired with Dogwood. The rest, and what brings us to Otzi today, were made from the hardwood of the wayfaring tree, Viburnum lantana.

Several viburnum produce branches that are smooth, flexible, strong and straight. Perfect for fashioning arrows. One species, Viburnum dentatum, even goes by the common name Arrow-wood. They are members of a genus of about 150–175 species of flowering plants in the family Adoxaceae. Viburnum can be evergreen or deciduous and are found throughout the Northern Hemisphere with a few species extending into tropical South America and southeast Asia. Before modern classification techniques, Viburnum was included in the honeysuckle family Caprifoliaceae. There are hundreds of cultivars with some producing beautifully sweat, almost cloying, aromas (like Viburnum 'Cayuga') and others so offensive they’ve been named as a warning (such as Viburnum foetidum, from the latin word for fetid.) The wayfaring tree, used by Otzi, was named by herbalist John Gerard, who noticed them along paths between Wiltshire and London in 1597, as so became associated with being on or near a path. I find it endearing to imagine the Iceman employing the shrub not only for crafting arms, but as a kind of vegetal trail marker, shepherding him along his course.

*Some cool arrowheads and how Otzi fixed ‘em.*

The viburnum has enjoyed a rich tradition in folk cultures as a symbol of wealth and good fortune. It is notably celebrated in the Ukraine. "Oi u Luzi Chervona Kalina" (Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow), composed in 1875 by Volodymyr Antonovych and Mykhailo Drahomanov, honors the Viburnum opulus and is considered so patriotic it was banned in 2014 after Russian annexation and again after the 2022 Russian invasion. In response to the invasion, Khlyvnyuk, of the Ukrainian band BoomBox, cut his US tour short to return to Ukraine and join the armed forces. He recorded a performance of the song, wearing army fatigues, standing near Sophia Square in Kyiv, and uploaded it to his Instagram account on February 27th. It immediately caught the attention of the Internet and by April Pink Floyd made use of Khlyvnyuk's recording for the vocal track of "Hey, Hey, Rise Up!", a single and a video which the band released in aid of Ukrainian humanitarian relief. As of this writing, the video has 12.5 million views.

*2022 Ukrainian commemorative coin with the raising of the Viburnum*

Macro portrait of Viburnum 'Cayuga’, April 23 — *Viburnum 'Cayuga’, April 23*

In general, Viburnums are not particular about where they exist, though they prefer fairly rich, moist soil. They do not transplant well once established, so the best strategy is to plant healthy container-grown plants in a thoughtful and curated destination. We have to guess that Otzi was equally ambivalent about where he grew, lived, and ultimately perished, although it’s not a stretch to assume he wouldn’t have turned down a warmer climate. To the governances of Italy and Austria, however, where he died was of monumental consequence. Once word had spread of the Iceman’s provenance, the Italians interest was piqued. A dispute over ‘ownership’ ensued and GPS investigations showed that the glacial mummy was indeed found just inside Italian territory. After six years of legal squabble, Otzi was handed over and transported from Innsbruck to a new and purpose-built refrigerated resting place in a converted former bank building selected for its favorable location in the historical center of Bolzano. Like the viburnum, successful transplantation was tenuous and labor intensive. Armed guards were employed to protect the body from scornful Austrians and sophisticated refrigeration was harnessed for the journey. By the time the dust settled, moving costs surpassed €8,800,000, roughly equivalent to $10,000,000.