It takes seven selected herbs to mix Frankfurt green sauce.

For a Würzwisch, on the other hand, up to ten times as many herbs, roots and flowers are tied together in a stately bouquet, especially in the rural regions of southern Germany.

However, this is not for consumption, but is intended to protect the owner from lightning, illness and other hardships.

For this, however, the tuft tied with a thin switch from the hazel bush must be consecrated.

Markus Schug

Correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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According to an old custom, the bundle should therefore be placed on August 15th, i.e. on the Assumption Day, at the altar of a church that is as important as possible, in order to protect the people living together under one roof and the cattle in the stable from all kinds of harm later on.

The consecration of herbs, which was already practiced in pre-Christian times, is still practiced today in some Catholic churches in Rheinhessen.

Although it is actually a popular belief.

There are play and experience stations especially for children

Since the beginning of May and until October, even the Cathedral and Diocesan Museum in Mainz has been dedicated to the symbolic action that can be experienced every year in late summer, which is about making the powers of nature usable for people with God's help.

In Rheinhessen, this generally requires around 33 renewable ingredients.

After all, the Nieder-Olm painter Jean Metten, who died in 1971, left 25 of the plants found in a Würzwisch region to posterity as detailed watercolours.

His works are in the special exhibition "Roses, Tulips, Carnations... and the Würzwisch.

In the flower garden of Christian art” not only to be seen and marveled at, but also to a large extent to be smelled if you are interested.

Especially for children, suitable play and experience stations have been set up in the approximately 500 square meter exhibition rooms, which are intended to encourage visitors to the herb and plant show to sniff and touch.

When strolling through the exhibition, the viewer's gaze falls on the Frankfurt paradise garden, for example, which in Mainz, however, can only be presented in the form of an illuminated image;

the original painting hangs in the Städel Museum.

The artist has placed more than two dozen different plants in the hortus conclusus, which is surrounded by a small wall and in which the crowned Virgin Mary is apparently relaxing while reading.

It is no coincidence that almost all of them, right down to the heavenly strawberry, have a special meaning.

The lily, like the rose, stands for purity and virginity, explained the curator Gerhard Kölsch, who discovered his love of plants at a young age, and his colleague Birgit Kita, who is responsible for the children's catalogue, during a tour.

The 57 objects selected include paintings, graphics and manuscripts as well as some textile works of art.

This includes an elaborately designed and florally decorated chasuble, which found its way from Venice to Seligenstadt around 1720, where it was regularly used as a chasuble from then on.

Only the representative tapestry that Archbishop Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg had weaved in Bruges around 1530 is likely to leave an even greater impression on the viewer.

The valuable piece shows his coat of arms embedded in a magnificent garden landscape with dandelions, wild pansies, lantern flowers, irises, carnations, peas and clover.

Further information on the special exhibition, which can be visited every day – except Mondays – for an entrance fee of five euros in Domstrasse 3 in Mainz, can be found at www.dommuseum-mainz.de.