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Plantains, Figworts, Foxglove and Speedwells 251In so far as great mullein has hadadditional, minor uses, the recordsare again Irish almost wholly. Inunspeciﬁed parts of Ulster a decoc-tion has been taken for diarrhoea and,mixed with other herbs, for cramp and for liverand kidney ailments, while a leaf roasted be-tween dock leaves and moistened with spittlehas been a treatment for boils.97The leaves havealso predictably found favour as a poultice: inparts of Ireland for ‘running sores’,98in Meathfor bee stings99and in Westmeath forgoitre.100In Kerry, though, it was thewater in which the plant had been boiledthat was rubbed into the body to easedoctor-resistant ‘pains’ (a wordmost often denoting rheuma-tism in the rural areas of Ire-land).101Verbascum lychnitisLinnaeuswhite mulleinsouthern half of Europe,western Siberia,Morocco; intro-duced into NorthAmerica(Name confusion suspected) If theplant known under the name ‘white mul-lein’in Wiltshire is correctly taken to beVerbascum lychnitis, its juice has beenused there as a wart cure.102However,there are no certain botanical recordsfor it from that county and perhaps thewhite leaves of V. thapsus have madethat ‘white mullein’ locally.Verbascum thapsus, great mullein(Fuchs 1543, ﬁg. 485)
Scrophularia nodosa Linnaeus common ﬁgwort, rose noble, brown(s)wort; fothrom (Irish)Europe, temperate western and central Asia, allied species in NorthAmerica; introduced into New ZealandLike great mullein (Ve rbascum thapsus), the far less conspicuous Scrophu-laria nodosa, with a rank smell and bitter-tasting leaves (as William Wither-ing noted), has been outstandingly and preponderantly an Irish herb. Knownin Ireland as ‘queen of herbs’, the consort of the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea),it was a plant of ancient veneration there, its usual name in Gaelic, fothrom,being a corruption of faoi trom, ‘under elder’: just as mistletoe partook ofthe magical properties of the oak by growing on that, so this was believed tohave special power through thriving in the shade of that other sacred tree. Justlike mistletoe, too, it was supposed to lose power if allowed to touch theground once picked.A name borne by any of the ﬁgworts in Devon,‘poor man’s salve’,103indi-cates one way in which these plants, and more specially Scrophularia nodosa,were used:the roots,which inS. nodosa areswollen and knobby, weregroundinto a powder and mixed with lard to produce an ointment applied to pilesand skin troublesof all kinds.Moreoften,though,the roots or leaves,or some-times the berries or seeds, were boiled and the liquid drunk—either as thestandard kind of tonic held to clear the blood of impurities, including boilsand rashes (Donegal,104Monaghan,105Cavan,106Co.Dublin,107Tipperary108),or as yet one further cure for bronchial ailments, sore throats, coughs andconsumption (Donegal,109Cavan,110Meath,111Waterford112).In Kilkenny,113on the other hand, sore throats were rubbed with the ointment and perhapsthat is also how goitre in Waterford114has been treated with the plant.Alternatively, one of the leaves might be applied as a poultice: to sprainsor other swellings in Donegal,115Londonderry116and Leitrim117(particu-larly extensively in the latter two), to burns in Leitrim118and Mayo,119towounds and cuts in Mayo120and, mixed with moss and herb-Robert, inWicklow.121For poulticing erysipelas in Donegal, however, it was not a leafbut the ground-up root that was used as one of several ingredients.122We are not told which part of the plant went into a herbal cocktail drunkat one time in Ulster for the liver and kidneys,123nor which has beenemployed in Donegal for liver trouble124nor in Cavan for stomach ail-ments125;nor can we be sure what the‘pains’ were for which it was valued inWaterford ‘ long ago’126unless they belonged to that‘any class of sudden pains’for which a leaf or a stem was dipped in Easter water in Kilkenny127and then252 Scrophularia nodosa
rubbed on the part of the body affected. Frustrating in a different way is thefailure to specify in which part of Ireland the plant has been used for a suddenstroke128or believed to have the yet further property of producing a copiousﬂow of the menses129(though that was presumably the basis for the practicein Londonderry of giving rose noble to cows to help clear the afterbirth130).British use of this herb has been very slight by comparison and apparentlyrestricted to the leaves alone: for poulticing skin eruptions, abscesses or ulcersin Devon131and wounds in Surrey—as testiﬁed by the name ‘cut ﬁnger leaves’recorded for it there.132And it was presumably through its employment forsuch purposes that the plant earned a name in Welsh that translates as ‘goodleaf’.133Scrophularia auriculata LinnaeusS. aquatica of authorswater ﬁgwort, water betonywestern and southern Europe, north-western Africa, Azores;introduced into New ZealandThough in English counties as far apart as Sussex,Oxfordshire,Leicestershireand Yorkshire134Scrophularia auriculata has suggestively had the supposedlyall-healing betony as one of its local names, it seems doubtful whether it wasconsistently distinguished for herbal purposes from S. nodosa. In Ireland, atany rate, both have passed as‘rose noble’,135and although in Cornwall136andDevon137there is a long tradition of singling out S. auriculata as a dressing forulcers (and in Devon for cuts as well),ulcers are one of the ailments for whichS. nodosa has been recorded in use in that same corner of the country138—though maybe uncritically. On the other hand it is expressly the leaves of‘water bitney’ that have been sought out in Oxfordshire, a county in whichboth species are present in quantity,for tying round festering ﬁngers.139In theCambridgeshire Fens, again it was leaves of ‘water bitney’—‘from the river’—that were used to poultice sore heels and chapped and gathered toes.140Itthus seems possible that in England, in contrast to Ireland,it was S. auriculatathat on the whole was the primary recipient of folk attention.Linaria vulgaris Millercommon toadﬂaxEurope, western Asia; introduced into North America, AustralasiaOnly two folk records of Linaria vulgaris have been traced, both from south-ern England: in Sussex it has served as a wart plant141and in Gloucestershireit has been mixed with yarrow leaves in a poultice to ease pain,staunch bleed-  Plantains, Figworts, Foxglove and Speedwells 253
ing and induce sleep.142Though frequent to common over much of the Brit-ish Isles at least since the time of William Turner, it tends to occupy only late-created habitats and has the suspect look of a slow-spreading invader fromthe Continent. That so conspicuous and easily distinguished a plant scarcelyfeatures as a folk herb in the British Isles, even though long established inofficial medicine, adds strength to that suspicion.Digitalis purpurea Linnaeusfoxglove, fairy ﬁngers, fairy thimble, throatwort, ﬂoppy dock;lus mór (Irish and Scots Gaelic)western Europe, Morocco; introduced into North America,Australasia and elsewhereThe story of William Withering’s testing of the therapeutic value of the oldfolk herb Digitalis purpurea and its subsequent adoption by official medi-cine has been recounted many times, particularly in more recent years. Notonly was it a landmark in the gradual reawakening to the possible genuine-ness of many long-derided country remedies, but Withering’s ten years ofpatient experimenting with the plant’s properties and his pioneering devel-opment of the technique of dose titration have earned him acclaim as thefounder of clinical pharmacology. The story, however, often underplays theextent to which species of foxglove had already been recommended for var-ious purposes by earlier writers, including the authors of the most widelyread English herbals (though not of the Classical texts143). Medieval Irishmonks are even known to have valued the plant as a diuretic to cure dropsy,the particular action which caught Withering’s attention in 1775,144whenhe was introduced to an old family recipe handed down from that of a Shrop-shire herb woman and, thanks to his recently acquired expertise as a ﬁeldbotanist, identiﬁed which of the score or so ingredients in that ‘cocktail’wasproducing the effect in question. Withering’s interest was conﬁned strictlyto the plant’s diuretic action and its ability to slow the pulse rate, the latterwhich eventually brought it into general use for treating heart failure. It isnow known that about a dozen different glycosides are present in Digitalisspecies but that the content of them varies through the year and in differentparts of the plant, the root having the least.Considering how well known its violent and even fatal action was, it issurprising that foxglove has been used as extensively as it has been in both thewritten and unwritten traditions, and for a considerable range of ailments. InScotland the older legal records contain numerous cases of children’s deaths254 Linaria vulgaris

Plantains, Figworts, Foxglove and Speedwells 255caused by drinking an infusion of the plant,145and it had a reputation inEnglish villages for causing alarming illnesses if recklessly used for treatingcolds.146In Orkney the observation that foxgloves proved deadly poisonousto geese caused them to be shunned for human remedies entirely.147In Ireland, too, the generality of folk practitioners avoided prescribingthe plant for internal use,148at any rate latterly (by which time its dangershad probably become more widely known).Heart troubles feature in the folk records as the single most widespreaduse, if the British and Irish ones are combined. While it is possible that thisusage partly antedates the publicity given to the treatment for that complaintDigitalis purpurea, foxglove(Green 1902, ﬁg. 463)
stemming from Withering’s work, a post-Withering acquisition from learnedmedicine seems more probable. The very scattered distribution of the folkrecords traced, in Britain and Ireland alike, lends support to that (justDevon,149Shropshire150and the Scottish lowlands151as far as the British onesare concerned).As a diuretic, though, valued for dropsy or gravel, the plant’scredentials as a folk medicine of much longer standing are more convincing,with British records from Oxfordshire,152Shropshire,153Yo r kshire154and theHighlands.155In the laterherbals,foxgloveis recommendedas a remedyfor tuberculosispre-eminently,but of its use for that in folk medicine only a single record (anIrish one) has been discovered. The herbals also make much mention of itsvalue for the tubercular condition of the glands known as scrofula, but folkrecordsofthat,too,are nolessconspicuous bytheir absence.Instead,the plantseemstohaveservedfor themostpart asanall-purposesalve:for bruises,espe-ciallywhenfestering,in theIsleof Man,156to bring boils to a head there,too,157and in the Highlands158for skin complaints of various kinds as well as in theIsleof Man159andDevon,160forcutsand wounds inMontgomeryshire,161forlumps and swellings in Inverness-shire162and for burns and scalds in Eriskayin the Outer Hebrides.163In Gloucestershirewithin living memory,large fox-glove leaves have been placed on the breasts to dry up milk at weaning.164A further quite widespread use—though much less in evidence in Britain(Kent (?),165Fife166)—has been for colds,sore throats and fevers. This was thestandard function of foxglove tea, though a broth sometimes took the placeof that. Some of the sore throats, however, may really have been diphtheria,cases of which in Inverness-shire are known to have been treated with a hotpoultice (made from the pulped roots) placed on the neck—a treatmentreserved there, too, for ‘bad knees’ (presumably rheumatism).167In the dayswhen fever victims were assailed with purges and emetics a decoction of thefoxglove, notorious for the violence of its effects, was found in use for thispurpose in the Somerset Levels in the sixteenth century by Matthias de l’O-bel 168and still persisted in that county and Devon nearly three centurieslater.169To remove pains following a fever, the inhabitants of Skye also at onetime found a foxglove poultice useful.170But it was presumably because itwas seen as dangerous to expose children to its properties too directly that thepreferred treatment for those suffering from scarlet fever, at least in Shrop-shire, was for them to wear the leaves in their shoes for a year.171The compounds which this plant contains not only affect the heart butcan powerfully inﬂuence the nervous system, too. In Derbyshire, according to256 Digitalis purpurea
Withering’s son, women ‘of the poorer class’ used to drink large amounts offoxglove tea as a cheap form of intoxication.172A herb so patently poisonous has predictably been deployed against pestsas well. In the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire the practice has survived ofboiling the plant to produce a disinfectant wash for the walls of houses, to ridthem of insects and the like.173Ireland has shared about the same set of uses in varying degrees. Whilethe plant features in the records more widely there as a remedy for heart trou-ble, apart from Sligo174and Cavan175the counties concerned form a notice-able cluster along the eastern coast (Co. Dublin,176Wicklow,177Wexfo rd178),possibly indicative of post-Withering intrusion by learned medicine.As onegeneral practitioner with an experience stretching back many years in theregion just south-west of the border never encountered any use for this pur-pose at all,179it may be that those records from Sligo and Cavan are merelyrecent intrusions, too. Even for use as a diuretic, the sole Irish record tracedis from ‘Ulster’ (unlocalised but probably one or more rural areas180), whichis one further reason for considering the knowledge of,or at any rate valuing,of these particular actions of the plants to be of no great age in this country.In Ireland, too, as in Britain, the foxglove has failed to make headwayagainst alternative remedies for tuberculosis (the sole record traced of usefor that is a Limerick one181), and it is either as an all-purpose salve or as acough cure that it seems to have featured almost exclusively. In the ﬁrst ofthose roles it has been applied to skin complaints in Donegal182and Limer-ick,183wounds in Cork,184lumps and swellings in Carlow185and Wexford,186sprains in Kilkenny,187burns in Limerick,188old ulcers in Londonderry189and festering stone-bruises in Donegal.190In the second role, as a tea, theplant has outdone Britain, with records from twice as many counties (Mon-aghan,191Mayo,192Limerick,193Wexfo rd194). But only Limerick, once again,has produced an instance of its use as a repellent: pieces of foxglove werethere at one time strewn around to kill rats and mice.195Veronica serpyllifolia Linnaeusthyme-leaved speedwellEurope, temperate Asia, North Africa, Macaronesia; introduced intoNorth and South America, New Zealand(Misidentiﬁcation suspected) According to one far from reliable source,196Ve ronica serpyllifolia is the herb known in Gaelic as luibh a treatha and theclassic Irish remedy for whooping cough. Confusion with the similarly small-leaved V. o fficinalis seems probable.  Plantains, Figworts, Foxglove and Speedwells 257
Veronica officinalis Linnaeusheath speedwellEurope, Asia Minor, Azores, Australia (?), eastern North America;introduced into New ZealandJohn Gerard in his Herball197described and ﬁgured Ve ronica officinalis as theherb long esteemed in Wales for great healing virtues under the name‘ﬂuellen’. That identiﬁcation may or may not have been correct, but he imme-diately confused matters by extending that name to the two British species ofKickxia (to which it has mainly been applied in books since) and to othermembers of the genus Veronica as well. If he had been correct, one wouldexpect numerous Welsh folk uses of this species to have persisted in the folkrecords down to recent times. However, only a single mention of any speed-well valued there medicinally has been met with: as a cure for piles andimpetigo, in some unstated part of the country and without indication ofthe species.198Although Ve ronica officinalis, as the speciﬁc name implies, was the speed-well focused on by official medicine as the possessor of a range of healingproperties (and its folk use in Romania for treating stomach ulcers appears tohave had its efficacy conﬁrmed as well founded by experiments199), it fea-tures too rarely in the Scottish and Irish folk records—and seemingly not atall in those for England—to be accepted as a wholly convincing member ofthe unwritten tradition in the British Isles, as opposed to being a late requi-sition from book-based lore. That a tea made from this species has beendrunk for gouty and rheumatic complaints in Angus200is suspiciously simi-lar to a recommendation that appears in books. It is hard to believe that it wasreally the plant intended by Martin Martin as betonica Pauli (a name for V.officinalis in the herbals) which he reported accompanied goldenrod and StJohn’s-wort in an ointment made in Skye for treating fractures,201for such ause seems at odds with the other claimed virtues of this species.The Irish evidence is only a little better. That the plant has been employedfor colds in one district of Donegal stands safely on the authority of an expe-rienced botanist202; in the adjoining county of Londonderry, however,another botanist found the country people mistook germander speedwellfor this species, using that for asthma and lung complaints.203Another Irishsource claims Ver onica species in general have been used in (unspecified)parts of the country for coughs from chest troubles of all kinds204—and V.officinalis is the one which in Germany has enjoyed a reputation for pul-monary tuberculosis. But that it was once used in Ireland by nursing moth-258 Ve ronica officinalis

Plantains, Figworts, Foxglove and Speedwells 259ers for sore nipples is an assertion based merely on a translation of a Gaelicname identiﬁed with this species.205Veronica chamaedrys Linnaeusgermander speedwell, cat’s-eye,bird’s-eyeEurope, northern and western Asia;introduced into North America,New ZealandVeronica chamaedrys has been so particu-larly mentioned in the folk records as a remedyfor two ailments almost exclusively that it seemssafe to assume that ‘speedwell’ is intended for thisin instances where just that name is given in either ofthose connections.One of those ailments is tired or strained eyes. Therecords traced of the use of a lotion for that are all from thesouthern half of England: Cornwall,206Somerset,207Suf-folk208and Norfolk.209In some areas, this use was appar-ently so deeply entrenched that the plant was known as‘eyebright’,210a name normally borne by Euphrasia species(with which speedwell was combined in the decoctionrecorded from Somerset211).In sharp contrast, the records of use for the other ailment,jaundice, are Irish exclusively: Cavan,212Longford,213Offaly,214Wicklow,215Tipperary,216Limerick217and Kerry218—mostly around the fringes of the central plain. The leavesand stems in these cases were boiled and the resulting liquiddrunk, with milk and sugar sometimes added. According toone Kerry informant, after drinking this twice daily the jaun-dice will disappear after the ninth day; but if the yellowcolour of the skin turns to black, thecure has no effect.219If this was ‘cat-eye’,the planthas performed the further ser-vice in Limerick, pounded andboiled in milk, of healing the‘falling sickness’, i.e. epilepsy.220Veronica chamaedrys,germander speedwell(Fuchs 1543, ﬁg. 501)
260 Ve ronica beccabungaVeronica beccabunga Linnaeus  brooklimeEurope, temperate Asia, North Africa; introduced into North AmericaMainly Irish as a folk herb, Ver onica beccabunga has shared with V. o fficinalisa reputation for easing colds and coughs (Wicklow,221Limerick,222Clare223)or as an expectorant (the Belfast area224), but in other ways its use has dis-played a pattern markedly different from other speedwells. Valued as adiuretic, it has treated kidney and urinary troubles in ‘Ulster’,225Wicklow226and Clare,227while it has served as a ‘spring juice’for cleansing the system ofimpurities and curing scurvy in Clare228and Cork229and been applied towounds in Londonderry.230But the famous eighteenth-century doctress ofMacroom in Co. Cork, Mrs Elizabeth Pearson, whose renowned cure forscrofula based on this plant made her such a fortune that she was able to buya house in the most fashionable part of London,231would appear to havebeen alone in the folk community in prescribing it for that.Outside Ireland the use for colds seems to have been reported solely fromthe Isle of Man,232but the very few British records are, curiously, almost alleither unlocalised or unattributable to a county with certainty. The plant hasbeen valued for healing ‘bad legs’(leg ulcers produced by scurvy?) in Hamp-shire233and perhaps also in Devon,234applied to fresh wounds in, probably,Norfolk,235and in at least some part of the country people are said to haveplaced the bruised leaves on burns.236Melampyrum pratense Linnaeuscow-wheatEurope,western Asia(Name ambiguity) Conceivably Melampyrum pratense was the plant knownas ‘golden wheat’ recorded as boiled in Cavan for kidney ailments.237Euphrasia officinalis Linnaeus, in the broad senseeyebrightnorthern temperate zone; introduced into New ZealandEuphrasia officinalis seems a unique instance of a well-known and widelyused herb which has apparently been valued in folk medicine for one purposeonly: to remedy eye troubles (of just about every kind short of blindness).That the mildly astringent juice does act at least as a comforting lotionappears well attested, though physicians learned to advise against its usebecause of its danger if that was done to excess.An ancient remedy, recordedfrom much of Europe and almost every part of the British Isles, it normally

Plantains, Figworts, Foxglove and Speedwells 261took the form of application to the eyes direct, but in Shropshire it has longbeen customary to trust to the drinking of a tea made from the plant toachieve the same purpose.238Though ‘eyebright’ has been recorded as a jaundice cure in Cavan,239therecord in question probably arose through the sharing of that name by ger-Euphrasia officinalis, eyebright(Green 1902, ﬁg. 476)
mander speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys), a known jaundice herb (includingin that county.)Pedicularis palustris Linnaeusmarsh lousewort, red rattlenorthern and central Europe, Caucasus, North AmericaIn the second half of the eighteenth century the Rev. Dr John Walker visitedJura in the course of a fact-finding survey of the Hebrides. A remarkablenumber of its inhabitants, he found, were crippled for life by a diseaseallegedly caused by a reddish worm, about an inch in length, which lodgedunder the skin of the knees or the ankles, causing intense pain. The afflictionwas known in Gaelic as the ﬁllan (under which name cases were recordedfrom elsewhere in the Hebrides and western Highlands by other earlyauthors). The only known cure as far as he could ascertain was derived fromthe root of a local plant: pounded and mixed with the marrow of beef bonesor goat tallow, this was applied on a hot poultice to the part affected. An expe-rienced botanist who became professor of natural history at Edinburgh Uni-versity, Walker identiﬁed the plant as Pedicularis palustris,240which is nowknown to contain a glycoside poisonous to insects. Thomas Pennant, whohad had a session with Walker three years before his second Scottish tour in1772, asked further about the worm when he, too, visited Jura. Pennant wasable to add that it was ‘small as a thread’, caused redness and moved quicklyfrom one part of the body to another; the only cure mentioned to him, how-ever, was a poultice of cheese and honey.241The only other record traced of the plant’s use in the British Isles is alsofrom the Highlands, where its ﬂowers are said to have been used to procurea cosmetic.242OROBANCHACEAELathraea squamaria LinnaeustoothwortEurope,western AsiaAccording to John Gerard, country women in England in his day called Lath-raea squamaria ‘lungwort’ and used it against ‘the cough’ (presumably pul-monary tuberculosis) and other lung troubles.243No other record has beentraced of the plant’s presence in folk medicine in either Britain or Ireland.262 Euphrasia officinalis

Plantains, Figworts, Foxglove and Speedwells 263LENTIBULARIACEAEPinguicula vulgaris Linnaeuscommon butterwort, bog violetEurope, northern Asia, Morocco, North AmericaRepeatedly referred to in the literature,from the eighteenth century onwards,as a folk medicine in use for cattle, the butter-like juice of Pinguicula vulgarishad its uses for human afflictions as well. According to John Parkinson,‘thecountry people that live where it groweth’applied it to hands chapped by thewind (‘felons’), while in Wales the poorer sorts of people made it not onlyinto a syrup with which to purge themselves and their children, but alsomixed it with butter to produce an ointment rated excellent for obstructionsof the liver.244Similarly there is a nineteenth-century record,apparently fromKent,245of the use of the juice for skin irritations caused by the wind, also ofthe crushed leaves as a village remedy for bruises. More recently still, an infu-sion has been drunk in the uplands of Westmoreland in the belief that thishelps to procure a smoother skin.246Unexpectedly, though this is a wide-spread plant of bogs, it does not seem to have featured as a folk medicine, atany rate for people, in either Ireland or Scotland.Notes1. McNeill2. Moore 18983. Sargent4. Tongue5. Shaw, 496. Britten & Holland7. Lafont8. Lafont9. Tait10. Lafont11. Evans 194012. Palmer 1994, 12213. McNeill14. Goodrich-Freer, 20515. Spence; Leask, 7516. Lafont17. Vickery MSS18. Tongue19. Pratt 1850–720. Vickery MSS21. Randell, 8722. Beith23. Williams MS24. Vickery 199525. IFC S 226: 48426. IFC S 133: 9427. IFC S 550: 274; 572: 9028. Goodrich-Freer, 20529. IFC S 932: 240, 31230. IFC S 132: 9731. IFC S 837: 12832. IFC S 932: 21733. IFC S 498: 38334. IFC S 572: 9035. IFC S 1043: 26936. IFC S 837: 12237. IFC S 550: 27438. IFC S 932: 311
264 Notes39. Gregory40. IFC S 837: 12541. IFC S 484: 21942. IFC S 572: 6943. IFC S 752: 22344. IFC S 736: 19045. IFC S 690: 11446. Maloney47. Maloney48. Maloney49. IFC S 857: 11850. IFC S 571: 208; 572: 29851. IFC S 22: 50952. IFC S 485: 23753. Pennant 1776, ii, 4254. Spooner, 19555. Bray, i, 95: Gordon, 184; Lafont56. Vickery 199557. Mabey, 32858. MacKerlie, 30559. Pennant 1771, 29060. Arthur, 4261. Lafont62. Dyer 1889, 29563. Pennant 1776, ii, 4364. Gibbs65. Lafont66. Gibbs67. IFC S 250: 3568. IFC S 690: 4169. IFC S 787: 3770. IFC S 825: 9471. IFC S 897: 8272. IFC S 654: 8973. IFC S 385: 5474. IFC S 476: 9175. Maloney76. IFC S 385: 5477. IFC S 736: 22, 24, 171; 746: 55478. IFC S 787: 216, 21979. IFC S 771: 14980. PLNN, no. 4 (1988), 1481. McClafferty82. IFC S 888: 23283. Ulster Folk and Transport Museum(ex Vickery MSS)84. Vickery 199585. IFC S 689: 10386. IFC S 862: 37687. IFC S 737: 40588. IFC S 787: 21589. Macpherson MS90. Wilson91. IFC S 775: 8392. Quinlan 1883a93. A. Allen, 4694. Hardwicke’s Science-gossip (1866),8395. Bardswell; Hatﬁeld, 3096. Newman 1945, 35697. Egan98. Moloney99. Farrelly MS100. IFC S 737: 480101. IFC S 413: 205102. Whitlock 1976, 164103. Britten & Holland104. IFC S 1098: 130105. IFC S 932: 241, 312; 960: 212, 282106. Maloney107. IFC S 786: 181, 204; 787: 53, etc.108. Barbour109. IFC S 1098: 130110. Maloney111. IFC S 710: 42112. IFC S 654: 242113. IFC S 850: 166114. IFC S 654: 290115. Hart 1898, 385116. Hart 1898, 385117. IFC S 190: 167–71118. IFC S 190: 112119. IFC S 93: 528120. IFC S 93: 528121. IFC S 914: 549122. McGlinchey, 83123. Egan124. IFC S 1098: 130

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Plantains, Figworts, Foxglove and Speedwells 265125. Maloney126. IFC S 655: 356127. IFC S 849: 315128. Ó Súilleabháin, 314129. Purdon130. Moore MS131. Lafont132. Britten & Holland133. Johnson 1862134. Britten & Holland; PLNN, no. 56(1998), 269135. Hart 1898, 385136. Couch, 174; Davey, 325137. PLNN, no. 2 (1988), 3138. Lafont139. PLNN, no. 2 (1998), 3140. Marshall 1967, 221141. A. Allen, 178142. Ibbott, 64143. Groves & Bisset144. Withering 1785145. Dalyell, 113146. Pratt 1857, 24147. Leask, 79148. Moloney149. Vickery MSS150. Hayward151. Simpson, 159152. Withering 1785, 9–10153. Withering 1785, 9–10154. Withering 1785, 9–10155. Polson, 32; Beith156. Fargher157. Fargher158. Polson, 32; Beith159. Fargher; Polson, 34; Beith160. Lafont161. Davies 1938162. Polson, 32; Beith163. McDonald, 171164. Hatﬁeld MS165. Pratt 1857, 24166. Simpkins, 133167. Beith168. de l’Obel, 308169. Bray, i, 317170. Martin, 224171. Vickery 1995172. Withering 1830173. Hopkins, 52; Palmer 1994, 122174. IFC S 157: 253175. Maloney176. IFC S 787: 281177. IFC S 913: 64178. IFC S 898: 87179. Logan, 28180. Egan181. IFC S 485: 191182. IFC S 1098: 64183. IFC S 504: 135184. IFC S 1128: 26185. IFC S 907: 176186. IFC S 897: 234187. IFC S 850: 114188. IFC S 491: 255189. Moore MS190. McGlinchey, 84191. IFC S 932: 311192. IFC S 138: 314193. IFC S 498: 128194. IFC S 888: 294195. IFC S 483: 256196. Moloney197. Gerard, 504198. Jones 1930, 143199. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 13(1985), 157–63200. Gardiner201. Martin, 230202. Hart 1898, 370203. Moore MS204. Moloney205. Moloney206. Macpherson MS207. Tongue208. Chamberlain 1981, 217209. Hatﬁeld MS210. Friend 1883–4, ii, 363

IFC S 385: 56230. Moore MS231.‘Ó Clara’, 35232. Fargher233. Yonge, 226234. Friend 1882235. Bryant, 117236. Johnson 1862237. Maloney238. Hayward239. Maloney240. McKay, 116, 238241. Pennant 1774, 215242. Cameron243. Gerard, 1388244. Parkinson, 534245. Pratt 1850–7246. Freethy, 128266 Notes211. Tongue212. IFC S 993: 19213. PLNN, no. 22 (1991), 101214. IFC S 290: 159215. McClafferty216. IFC S 530: 300b217. IFC S 489: 91; 491: 255; 524: 255218. IFC S 412: 97; 413: 228219. IFC S 413: 228220. IFC S 512: 446221. Ó Cléirigh222. IFC S 483: 84223. IFC S 601: 183224. Barbour225. Egan226. IFC S 921: 90227. IFC S 617: 334228. IFC S 617: 334
2678CHAPTER 14Bedstraws, Valerian andScabiousDicotyledonous ﬂowering plants in the orders (and families) Rubiales (Rubi-aceae, bedstraws) and Dipsacales (Caprifoliaceae, honeysuckles; Valeri-anaceae, valerians; Dipsacaceae, teasels) are included in this chapter.RUBIACEAEGalium odoratum (Linnaeus) ScopoliAsperula odorata LinnaeuswoodruffEurope, Siberia, North Africa; introduced into North AmericaBruising the fresh leaves of Galium odoratum and applying them to woundsand cuts was a very common practice of country people in seventeenth-century England1and was recorded in use in Norfolk as late as 1911.2Other-wise woodruff seems to have featured in folk medicine only as a tea madefrom the dried leaves and drunk for feverish colds and lung infections—andonly in the Highlands, where that function was reflected in its name inGaelic.3Galium palustre Linnaeus, in the broad sensemarsh bedstrawEurope, western Asia, North Africa, North AmericaA plant of muddy streams known as gairgean (or geirgein) in either SouthUist or Eriskay of the Outer Hebrides, of which a preparation has beenapplied there externally for dropsy, has been identiﬁed as Galium palustre.4
Galium verum Linnaeuslady’s bedstrawEurope, western Asia; introduced into North AmericaThough common over much of the British Isles and a herb much in favour inother European countries, especially for its ability to staunch bleeding, Gal-ium verum appears to have had no place in folk medicine in Britain and Ire-land except as a veterinary one. However, its use persists in Berkshire,5if notelsewhere, as a deterrent of moths, dried and placed in drawers.Galium saxatile Linnaeusheath bedstrawwestern and central Europe, NewfoundlandThe name llysiau’r eyr, shingles plant, reported from Cardiganshire andattributed to woodruff (Galium odoratum) in the University of Wales dic-tionary of the Welsh language, Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, has been conclu-sively established as G. saxatile: two informants, in Denbighshire and Angle-sey, respectively, still using it today for shingles, pointed it out, thus enablingthe identiﬁcation to be clinched by the National Museum of Wales.6Galium saxatile also features in an Isleof Man list as a remedyused there fornosebleeds,7which suggests that it shares the styptic property of lady’s bed-straw; alternatively, the record may have been referred to the wrong species.Galium aparine Linnaeuscleavers, goosegrass, Robin-run-in-the-hedge, catchweedEurope, northern and western Asia; introduced into North America and elsewhereThe very common Galium aparine, largely scorned by learned medicine overthe years, has enjoyed an impressively diverse and widely scattered number ofuses in its folk counterpart, though none with any particular pre-eminence ormarked geographical clustering. Principally it has served as a spring tonic,either on its own or mixed with nettles and/or other plants, with the tradi-tional reputation of herbal tonics of cleansing the system of impurities(Essex,8Norfolk,9Montgomeryshire10) and for skin complaints such as pso-riasis (Norfolk11).A special use which may belong in that same category is tocounteract scurvy. After a Dublin hospital physician had published a note inthe British Medical Journal in 1883 reporting the beneﬁcial effects of mulleinfor tuberculosis patients, he received letters from ‘several parts’of the BritishIsles recommending him to test on his patients similarly the claims made forgoosegrass as a cure for chronic ulcers.12It is unclear whether that knowledge268 Galium verum

Bedstraws,Valerian and Scabious 269was derived from the herbals (in which the plant was recommended for thispurpose) or folk sources; if the latter, disappointingly little evidence of thosehas proved traceable, records of that use having been located only fromDevon,13Norfolk14and somewhere in Ulster.15The next most widely reported applications in Britain are for colds(Devon,16Dorset (?),17Berwickshire18) and cuts and wounds (Essex,19Nor-Galium aparine, cleavers (Fuchs1543, ﬁg. 28)
270 Galium aparinefolk20), the second of which in ‘some English country districts’ unspeciﬁedhas extended to drinking the juice mixed with wine as a remedy for the bitesof adders.21Single records only have been met with of applications to can-cerous tumours (Devon22), boils (Somerset23), rheumatism (Essex24) andwarts (South Riding of Yorkshire25).Ireland’s uses have been largely different but even more diverse. Whiletumours have similarly been among those (Londonderry26and some part ofthe country unspeciﬁed27), unlike Britain it has produced records for burns(Westmeath,28Wicklow29), whooping cough (unlocalised30), swellings(Wicklow31), inﬂammation of the bowels in children (Donegal32), stomach-ache (Limerick33) and ‘softening the joints’(Tipperary34). Though this planthas had a reputation in learned medicine as a diuretic, the sole hint of thattraced in the folk record is its mixing with crane’s-bill (Geranium sp.) in apreparation drunk for kidney trouble in Kerry.35So lengthy a tail of miscellaneous uses with an apparently very restricteddistribution is normally characteristic of herbs with a much more salientpresence in the folk records. It may be that this species was once much moreprominent in that repertory but lost that place over the centuries to otherplants whose effectiveness was more readily apparent. An alternative expla-nation could lie in its strictly seasonal character as a remedy, for it is effectivefor healing only in the spring; other reputed cures would therefore have hadto be resorted to at other seasons.CAPRIFOLIACEAESambucus nigra LinnaeuselderEurope, western Asia, North Africa, Azores; introduced into North AmericaSambucus nigra rivals only docks,nettles and dandelions in prominence anddiversity of use as a folk herb. Some of that it may owe to its former magico-religious status as a tree redolent of special powers, but it does also seem topossess some genuine therapeutic effects.Of the total of 159 records traced,just under half are accounted for by thefour leading uses. Much the commonest of these, with 32 records, is for coldsand respiratory troubles (the liquid from the boiled ﬂowers induces sweatingand the berries are rich in vitamin C); but whereas that is found mostly in thesouthern half of England, the 14 records for burns or scalds and the 12 forswellings and inﬂammation are preponderantly Irish. The 16 for skin sores

Bedstraws,Valerian and Scabious 271and related complaints such as erysipelas and ringworm on the other handexhibit no particular geographical pattern, and the same is true of cuts (8),rheumatism (7), warts (7), boils (6) and use as a cosmetic (6).The lesser uses are intriguingly diverse but have been much the same inBritain and Ireland. Britain’s uses have included treatment for insect bitesand stings (Somerset,36Norfolk,37Isle of Man38), nettle stings (Devon,39Sambucus nigra, elder (Fuchs 1543, ﬁg. 36)
272 Sambucus nigraSomerset40), dropsy and kidney trouble (Cambridgeshire,41Berwickshire,42Fife43), toothache (Devon,44‘South Wales’,45Gloucestershire46), gout (Nor-folk,47Cumbria48), sprains (Gloucestershire,49Berwickshire50), eye troubles(Hampshire,51Orkney52), constipation (Devon,53the Highlands54), jaundice(Herefordshire55), measles (Suffolk56), tonsillitis (Devon57) and piles (Sus-sex58). A wine made from the ﬂowers has also been widely drunk as prophy-laxis in Gloucestershire and Buckinghamshire, and in the former’s Forest ofDean is remembered as a cure-all which was taken for a day or two beforecalling a medical practitioner—for if it failed to clear up the trouble in ques-tion, then it could only be that something serious was afoot.59Ireland has yielded records from up to three counties for all the aboveailments in the list above except insect bites, sprains, constipation, measles,tonsillitis and piles. Epilepsy (Cavan,60Cork61) and indigestion (Sligo,62Car-low63) are the only two noted that are additional.Sambucus ebulus Linnaeusdwarf eldercentral and southern Europe, western Asia; introduced into NorthAmerica, Madeira(Folk credentials questionable) Much rarer than Sambucus nigra and reput-edly with similar but stronger properties, S. ebulus does not appear to setgood seed in the British Isles, depending for its persistence on adventitiousshoots. It presumably therefore owes its presence where it occurs in the BritishIsles to deliberate introduction,though it is possible that it was fertile at somehotter period in the past. The name danewort long applied to it in manyplaces and an apparent association with prehistoric sites have occasioned fre-quent suggestions in the literature that it was brought across from the Euro-pean mainland by one or more waves of early invaders for some speciﬁc util-itarian purpose. According to John Parkinson,64though, it owes that namemerely to its strong purging effect: those who took it medicinally were spokenof as ‘troubled with the Danes’. Certainly it was a herb well known to theRomans and the Anglo-Saxons and consequently recommended in herbals.Curiously, although the populations of the plant in Berkshire are onrecord as having been heavily raided by herb collectors early in the nine-teenth century (on account of its popularity for treating dropsy),65the onlyrecords traced of actual folk uses are from remote areas where it must alwayshave been extremely scarce or even non-existent in the wild. In Aberdeenshireit was noted by James Robertson on his 1768 tour as in use for plasters for dis-pelling tumours,66and in Londonderry—the sole Irish record—it was
allegedly sometimes employed for dropsy and rheumatic pains in the earlynineteenth century.67All the evidence seems to indicate that this was late,book-derived medicine.Viburnum lantana Linnaeuswayfaring-treecentral and southern Europe, northern Asia Minor, north-westernAfrica; introduced into North AmericaThere is one Suffolk record of the leaves of Viburnum lantana being used formaking ‘an excellent gargle’.68Lonicera periclymenum Linnaeushoneysucklewestern and central Europe, Morocco; introduced into North AmericaIn a somewhat ambiguous statement, probably rightly interpreted by a laterauthor69as referring to ‘the common people’ of England, John Parkinson70poured scorn on a deep-rooted practice of employing the leaves and ﬂowersof Lonicera periclymenum for gargles and for lotions for inﬂammations ofthe mouth or ‘the privy parts of men and women’. By these he clearly meantthat fungus infection known as thrush, which most characteristically attacksthe lining of the mouth and tongue,especially in infants, or the vagina, espe-cially in pregnancy. And this is in fact the ailment which features in the folkrecords as the one for which honeysuckle has, by a small margin, been mostwidely used—though those records are Irish exclusively (from Sligo,71theAran Islands,72Wicklow73and Wexford,74on the assumption that ‘soremouth’ in two of those counties refers to this; on the other hand ‘a cold bro-ken out on the lips’, recorded from Monaghan,75sounds more like herpes).Some of the other uses recorded in Ireland echo those of the elder tree:jaundice in Cavan76and (especially) Leitrim,77consumption or whoopingcough—mixed with other herbs—in Wicklow78and Cork,79burns in Louth80and erysipelas in Donegal.81The many fewer British records are partly for similar complaints: asthmaand/or bronchitis in Norfolk82and the Highlands83is clearly similar to theIrish remedy for coughs, and an infusion drunk to cure a headache in thosesame two areas84is no doubt cognate; but the same cannot be said of theemergency remedy for adder bites in Devon,85the cure for stings in Hamp-shire86or the wash for removing freckles or soothing sunburn known fromthe Highlands.87  Bedstraws,Valerian and Scabious 273
Lonicera caprifolium Linnaeusgoat-leaf honeysucklecentral and southern Europe, Asia Minor; introduced into westernEurope, North AmericaIn parts of southern Devon the blossoms of the non-native Lonicera capri-folium have been drunk as an infusion for asthma,88evidently as an alterna-tive to those of L. periclymenum. But they are more likely to have beenobtained from gardens than from naturalised bushes.VALERIANACEAEValeriana officinalis Linnaeusvalerianmost of Europe, temperate Asia; introduced into North AmericaThough the roots of the common valerian, Valeriana officinalis, have beenvalued as the source of a nerve relaxant since ancient times and an extract hasbecome fashionable in alternative medicine as a sedative, no undoubted folkrecords of the plant’s use for that purpose have been traced. Nor does WilliamWithering’s89recommendation of it as a laxative ﬁnd any reﬂection in themeither—other than for cows in the Hebrides.90Similarly, its reputation todayof reducing the ill effects of alcohol appears to have no parallel in folkmedicine.As a folk herb, Valeriana officinalis has principally fulﬁlled two quite otherfunctions in the British Isles: as yet another tonic to stimulate and cleansethe system (Suffolk,91Gloucestershire92) and to staunch bleeding fromwounds and other cuts (Sussex93) or heal a festering finger (Wiltshire,94Gloucestershire95). In Wiltshire the marsh valerian, V. dioica Linnaeus, hasalso been recorded as bearing the name cut-ﬁnger-leaf,but doubtless the twospecies have passed as one and the same in the eyes of country people. A slightvariant of that name borne in Hampshire96by a plant whose leaves have beenused there for binding wounds has been attributed, however, rightly orwrongly, to the garden valerian or ‘setwall’, V. pyrenaica Linnaeus. That attri-bution may have been inﬂuenced by the passage John Gerard has about ‘set-wall’ in his Herball97:The dry roote . . . is put into counterpoisons and medicines preserva-tive against the pestilence …;whereupon it hath beene had (and is tothis day among the poore people of our northerne parts) in such ven-eration among them, that no brothes, pottage, or physicall meates are274 Lonicera caprifolium
worth anything, if setwall were not at one end: whereupon somewoman poet or other hath made these verses:They that will have their healeMust put setwall in their keale.It is used in slight cuts, wounds, and small hurts.Valeriana pyrenaica lingers on as a naturalised plant in northern countryareas, and it seems likely that following its introduction into the British Islesit partly displaced V. o fficinalis as a wound plant.One or two minor uses of Valeriana officinalis have been recorded inBritain in addition: for indigestion in Skye and South Uist in the InnerHebrides98and for barrenness in the Highlands.99Though said to have beenheld in high repute in Wales at one time for its healing as well as magicalpowers,100no more speciﬁc Welsh records have been traced. Maybe that wasone of ‘the countries of this land’ that Parkinson had in mind in reportingthat this plant was generally called ‘the poor man’s remedy’; a decoction of itsroot drunk if cold after sweating, troubled with colic or wind or ‘otherwisedistempered’, or its leaves bruised and applied to a cut or to draw out a thornor splinter.101Irish records are far fewer and have been traced only from the north: inDonegal102and Londonderry103for cleansing the system and in London-derry as a wound plant—both as in Britain—but in Cavan104for such unre-lated purposes as sore eyes, liver trouble and tuberculosis.DIPSACACEAEDipsacus fullonum Linnaeus  wild teaselEurope, south-western Asia, North Africa, Canary IslandsAccording to a deep-seated folk belief going back at least to Pliny the Elder,the rain-water or dew collecting in the natural cup between the connate leavesof Dipsacus fullonum (known as the ‘bath of Venus’or the ‘lip of Venus’) hadcertain healing properties. Sundew and lady’s-mantle, similarly endowedwith droplets of moisture of mysterious origin, were treated with specialrespect for much the same reason. Teasel’s version of ‘holy water’ was thoughtparticularly beneﬁcial when used as an eye lotion (Somerset,105Sussex,106Denbighshire107) but it is also recorded as used in Wales for ridding the com-plexion of freckles.108  Bedstraws,Valerian and Scabious 275
The heads of the plant were formerly in demand as well in ‘various partsof England’109(and sold in London in Covent Garden market110) as a certaincure for the ague. Three, ﬁve or seven—note the magical odd numbers—ofthe thin ‘worms’ found in these in the autumn were sealed up in a quill or abag and worn against the pit of the stomach or some other part of the person.More mundane than those two uses was boiling the root and applying it toabscesses (in Suffolk111) or to warts (in Wiltshire112). The absence of recordsfrom Scotland or Ireland is noteworthy.Knautia arvensis (Linnaeus) CoulterScabiosa arvensis Linnaeusﬁeld scabiousEurope, western SiberiaTwo records of the use of ‘scabious’in Essex, as an infusion for rheumatism113and as a decoction sat over to cure piles,114seem more likely to belong toKnautia arvensis than Succisa pratensis on distributional grounds.Succisa pratensis MoenchScabiosa succisa Linnaeusdevil’s-bit scabiousEurope, western Siberia, North AfricaA common plant of the acid soils of the west of the British Isles, Succisapratensis has been widely valued there for the properties of its root. At leastpart of this use may have been magico-religious, for the peculiarly truncatedshape of the root is supposed to have suggested the notion that this was theproduct of some malign inﬂuence (hence the vernacular name), for whichreason it was recommended for the scaly eruptions known as ‘devils’bites’. Itwas still in use precisely for those in the Rossendale Valley in south-easternLancashire well into the nineteenth century,115doubtless by those who tookthe herbals as gospel.It is tempting to ascribe to that same superstition the reserving of thisplant in Somerset speciﬁcally for bites by dogs—but in fact it has a seem-ingly well-founded reputation as an antiseptic. The wound caused by thosebites was bathed with water in which devil’s-bit had been steeped, then cov-ered with the leaves to check the bleeding and initiate healing.116The planthas accordingly been favoured for sores of all kinds, of which British exam-ples include sore throats117and bruises118in the Isle of Man and, if the use forscurvy reported from there is correctly interpreted, scorbutic sores in Shet-land.119‘The itch’, which this plant has relieved in the Highlands,120must276 Dipsacus fullonum

Bedstraws,Valerian and Scabious 277surely have been scabies (hence ‘scabious’), too. If devil’s-bit also has anaspirin-like effect, that could explain its use for rheumatism in the Isle ofMan121and for toothache in the Highlands,122afflictions which were per-haps among the ‘all manner of ailments’ this plant is said to have beenemployed against in Cornwall.123Succisa pratensis, devil’s-bit scabious (Fuchs 1543, ﬁg. 408)
278 Succisa pratensisThe Irish uses have shared the same dominant theme:‘sores such as boils’in Mayo124and—assuming this was meena madar, ‘a nice little blue ﬂower’—running sores on the Clare-Galway border.125If the ‘evil’ it helped to assuagein Sligo126was a reference to the king’s evil, i.e. scrofula (tuberculosis of theglands), then that belongs in that category, too.Notes1. Parkinson, 5632. Bardswell3. Cameron; Beith4. McDonald, 134; Goodrich-Freer,2065. Vickery 19956. Williams MS7. Fargher8. Hatﬁeld, 569. Harland; Hatﬁeld 56, 8710. Evans 194011. Hatﬁeld, 8812. Quinlan 1883b13. Lafont14. Hatﬁeld, 77, 8815. Hatﬁeld MS16. Lafont17. Quelch, 6418. Johnston 185319. Hatﬁeld, 33, 8820. Hatﬁeld, appendix21. Hole, 1222. Lafont23. Tongue24. Newman & Wilson25. CECTL MSS26. Hart 1898, 38427. Moloney28. IFC S 747: 18729. McClafferty30. Wright, 252; Ó hEithir MS31. IFC S 914: 32232. Hart 1898, 37933. IFC S 482: 35734. IFC S 550: 28235. IFC S 412: 9636. Tongue37. Hatﬁeld MS38. Moore 189839. Vickery MSS; Lafont40. Tongue41. Porter 1969, 8042. Johnston 185343. Vickery MSS44. Lafont45. Trevelyan, 31546. Gibbs, 5747. Wigby, 65; Hatﬁeld, appendix48. Freethy, 7949. Vickery MSS50. Johnston 185351. Yonge, 21852. Leask, 7253. Lafont54. Beith55. Leather, 8056. Folk-lore, 35 (1924), 356; Jobson1959, 14457. Lafont58. Vickery 199559. PLNN, no. 37 (1994), 181–260. Maloney61. IFC S 385: 5562. IFC S 170: 25663. IFC S 907: 20864. Parkinson, 21065. Lousley66. Henderson & Dickson, 15567. Moore MS68. Chamberlain 1981, 253

Bedstraws,Valerian and Scabious 27969. Deering, 4670. Parkinson, 146171. IFC S 170: 25672. Ó hEithir73. McClafferty74. IFC S 876: 24075. IFC S 932: 24076. IFC S 800: 122; 992: 2977. IFC S 190: 167, 168, 17078. McClafferty79. IFC S 385: 28680. IFC S 672: 21081. McGlinchey, 8382. Hatﬁeld, appendix83. Beith84. Hatﬁeld, 39; Beith85. Lafont86. Eyre, 7587. Beith88. Lafont89. Withering 1787–92, 2190. McDonald, 24891. Chamberlain 1981, 20392. Palmer 1994, 12293. Vickery 199594. Dartnell & Goddard, 3995. Vickery 1995; Wright, 24696. Wright, 24397. Gerard, 91998. McDonald, 24899. Carmichael, iv, 203100. Trevelyan101. Parkinson, 124102. Hart 1898, 380103. Moore MS104. Maloney105. Vickery 1995106. Latham, 45107. Mabey, 353108. Trevelyan109. Dyer 1880, 21110. Cullum MS111. Jobson 1959, 144112. Whitlock 1976, 164113. Newman & Wilson114. Hatﬁeld, 43, appendix115. Notes and Queries, ser. 9, 4 (1899),98116. Tongue117. Paton118. Moore 1898119. Jamieson120. Beith121. Fargher122. Pennant 1776, ii, 43123. Deane & Shaw124. IFC S 138: 465125. Gregory126. IFC S 171: 53
2808CHAPTER 15DaisiesDicotyledonous ﬂowering plants in the order Asterales and family Asteraceae(thistles, daisies and the like) are included in this chapter.ASTERACEAECarlina vulgaris Linnaeuscarline thistleEurope, Asia Minor, Siberia; introduced into North AmericaIn Limerick a preparation from Carlina vulgaris has been rubbed into theskin for a disease described as spreading over the body.1Arctium Linnaeusburdock, cockle; crádán (Ireland); meac-an-dogh (Highlands andWestern Isles); bollan-dhoo (Manx)Europe, Caucasus, North Africa; introduced into North America,AustralasiaArctium is another example of a well-known and widely popular herb—strictly speaking herbs, for more than one species is involved—with one prin-cipal use and an impressive diversity of other subsidiary ones as well. Thatprincipal one, mainly via a decoction of the roots, has been and still is as aforceful cleanser of the system and consequent eliminator of boils and skincomplaints. In that it resembles sarsaparilla, the tropical drug to which bur-dock was even rated superior by some eighteenth-century physicians, accord-ing to William Withering. Unexpectedly, though—if the records traced accu-rately reﬂect its distribution—that use has been restricted in Britain just toextreme south-western England (Cornwall,2Devon3) and parts of Scotland

bundet

Daisies 281Arctium lappa Linnaeus, greaterburdock (Fuchs 1543, ﬁg. 40)(Berwickshire,4Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides5) together with the Isle ofMan,6a pattern suggestive of overspills from Ireland,where the use has beenmarkedly widespread (see below).Though it might be supposed that cleans-ing the system has extended to treating rheumatic complaints,as has been thecase with some other herbs, the very different distribution of records forthose (Montgomeryshire,7Suffolk,8East Riding of Yorkshire9) lends no sup-port to such an assumption. Nor is there any apparent connection, similarly,
between any of the other uses of burdock recorded from Britain: for jaundice(South Uist in the Outer Hebrides10), urinary complaints (Berwickshire11),inﬂammatory tumours (‘much in use amongst the country people’for those,according to John Quincy in 171812), allaying nervousness (Isle of Man13)and, by application of a poultice of the bruised leaves to the soles of the feet,such other conditions as epilepsy, hysteria and convulsions (the ‘west of Eng-land’14and other (?) unspeciﬁed rural areas15).In Ireland the plant’s predominance as a cleansing herb has been particu-larly pronounced, with a bunching of records in Leinster. Otherwise, as inBritain, its applications have been very various and some of them differentones: for instance,for burns (Meath,16Wicklow17), cuts (Cavan18), ﬂatulence(Donegal19) and to poultice boils (Sligo20).An ancient Irish remedy for scro-fula,21the glandular swellings it has more recently been deployed against,22may be the same as Quincy’s inﬂammatory tumours, however. And Irelandhas shared with Britain that same special cure for convulsions (Louth23) aswell as the uses for nervousness (Meath24), jaundice (Donegal25), rheumatism(Londonderry,26Cavan,27Limerick28),coldsand respiratory trouble(Cavan,29Mayo30) and, as a powerful diuretic, dropsy and kidney and urinary com-plaints (Ulster,31Cavan,32Wicklow33).Cirsium arvense (Linnaeus) Scopolicreeping thistleEurasia, North Africa; introduced into North America, AustralasiaSilybum marianum (Linnaeus) Gaertner  milk thistle, blessed thistle, lady’s thistle, speckled thistlesouthern Europe, south-western Asia, North Africa; introduced intowestern and central Europe, North and South America, AustralasiaBecause of the vagueness with which the name thistle has been applied infolk medicine, it is difficult in most cases to be at all sure to which particularspecies any one record relates. Any valued for a milky juice applied as a wartcure (sometimes known as ‘milk thistle’,‘soft thistle’ or ‘soft white thistle’) isalmost certainly one of the sow-thistles (Sonchus spp.), and all records forthat use are therefore listed under that genus. One or more other kinds seemto have been well known as a specific for whooping cough, boiled in newmilk, just in one tight group of counties in the north-eastern corner of whatis now the Irish Republic: Cavan,34Monaghan35and above all Louth.36Though recorded under some names which could refer to various species,such as ‘larger kind of thistle’,‘white thistle’,‘crisp thistle’and ‘bracket thistle’,282 Arctium
others—‘blessed thistle’,‘lady’s thistle’ and ‘speckled thistle’—are indicativeof Silybum marianum, even though that is quite rare in Ireland and certainlyintroduced. If that identiﬁcation is correct, possibly the sole source of it forherbal medicine was cottage gardens, in which case these records do notrightly belong in this book. ‘Blessed thistle’ has also been used for loss ofappetite in Meath.37That name originally referred in learned medicine tothe southern European Cnicus benedictus Linnaeus, also known as ‘holy this-tle’, which was recommended in herbals for colds. That could account for arecord from Cavan38of ‘holly thistle’as a cure for those.That leaves a residue of records which may belong to one or more of thevery common wild, purple-ﬂowered thistles such as Cirsium arvense and C.vulgare (Savi) Tenore. The ‘Scotch thistle’ or ‘bull thistle’ still employed forkidney infection in Donegal39is presumably one of those. But the identity ofthe species employed as a wound plant in Co. Dublin40and Limerick41isquite uncertain, and the same applies to the one whose tops,mixed with plan-tain and sorrel, have yielded a juice drunk for tuberculosis in Kildare.42Whatever their identity, records for true thistles thus seem to be Irishalmost exclusively. The sole exception is a thistle tea drunk in the Highlandsto dispel depression.43Serratula tinctoria Linnaeussaw-wortnorthern and central Europe, Siberia, Algeria; introduced into North AmericaThere is just one record, from Sussex, for Serratula tinctoria as a woundplant.44The species is still locally frequent in that county and thus plentifulenough to be utilised herbally.Centaurea cyanus Linnaeuscornﬂower, bluebottlesouth-eastern Europe; introduced into the rest of Europe, south-western Asia, North Africa, North America, AustralasiaThere is an apparently long-standing East Anglian tradition of collecting theheads of the once common cornﬁeld weed Centaurea cyanus, bruising anddistilling them in water,and dropping the liquid into the eyes,to cure them ofinﬂammation or merely clear those of the elderly enough to make wearingglasses unnecessary (hence‘break spectacles water’). There is a recipe to thiseffect in a late seventeenth-century Suffolk household book which has sur-vived in a Norwich church.45The practice is referred to rather grudgingly by  Daisies 283
284 Centaurea cyanusJohnGerard46and,though mentioned inat leastone later herbal,seems morelikelyto havebeen afolk use adopted by official medicine than viceversa.Lend-ing support to that is a twentieth-century Essex record of boiling the ﬂowerswith chamomile heads and applying the mixtureas a compress to tired eyes.47Centaurea nigra Linnaeuscommon knapweed, hardheads; blackheads, blackbuttons (Ireland)western Europe; introduced into North America, AustralasiaAs a medicinal herb almost exclusively Irish, the common Centaurea nigrahas been used in that country principally for jaundice and liver trouble(Ulster,48Cavan,49Offaly,50Laois,51Wicklow52), the decoction of its roots inmilk rivalling dandelion as a treatment for that. That it has also been valuedas a cleansing tonic is suggested by its reputation for removing boils in Lim-erick53and—signiﬁcantly, if drunk in a mixture with bur-dock—for curing scurvy in Wicklow.54On the Clare-Gal-way border the same preparation has been drunkfor ‘pains in the bones’ (presumablyrheumatism or osteoarthritis),55while inDonegal a much-favoured remedy local-ly for ‘the decline’ (presumably tubercu-losis) was seven stalks of this, seven of‘fairy lint’ (purging ﬂax, Linum catharti-cum) and seven of maidenhair,pounded together and mixed withseven noggins of water drawnfrom a place where three streamsmeet56; it may well also be the ‘but-tonweed’ of which an infusion hasbeen drunk in Kerry for asthma.57It ispossible that more Irish records are hid-den within the numerous ones for plan-tain, for both that and knapweed have beenknown as ‘blackheads’ in Co. Dublin,58Done-gal59and no doubt other counties, too.The only British use recorded thatis certainly the same as any of the Irishones is a reputation for boils in Mont-gomeryshire60; this plant may, how-Centaurea nigra, common knapweed (Green 1902, ﬁg. 354)

Daisies 285ever, be the ‘horse knaps’that has found favour for rheumatism in Furness.61Peculiar to Essex, apparently, is an infusion drunk as a digestive.62In the Isleof Man the one-time name lus-y-cramman-dhoo hints at a medicinal use butwhat that was has never been ascertained.63Lapsana communis LinnaeusnipplewortEurope, western and central Asia, North Africa; introduced into North America, AustralasiaUnder Gaelic names translating as ‘good leaf’ and ‘breast leaf’, Lapsana com-munis has had the special function in the Highlands of allaying the sorenessof the nipples of nursing mothers64(a function alleged to have been per-formed in Ireland by heath speedwell, Ve ronica officinalis65). This may alsohave been the purpose left undisclosed—on grounds of delicacy?—by themid-nineteenth-century author who knew the plant featured at that time invillage medicine in ‘parts of England’.66Ye t the fact that John Parkinson wasled to coin the name nipplewort only on learning of its use for this same par-ticular purpose in Prussia67seems to suggest that it had no vernacular namein English before that, which suggests in turn that the use may merely havebeen a late inﬁltration into the folk repertory of Britain.That in Ireland Lapsana communis has apparently been recorded only asan application to cuts, bruises or burns (Wexford,68Tipperary69) could beevidence in support of that possibility. On the other hand,a use for the breastmay well not have been revealed to the male or child enquirers responsible formost of the Irish folk records.Hypochaeris maculata Linnaeusspotted cat’s-earnorthern and central EuropeIn one districtin theYorkshire Pennines in the eighteenth century,Hypochaerismaculata was believedacurefor‘tetters’and other skin complaints—becauseof its spotted leaves, it has been (perhaps fancifully) suggested.70Sonchus arvensis Linnaeusperennial sow-thistleEurope, western Asia; introduced into other continentsSonchus asper (Linnaeus) Hillprickly sow-thistlecosmopolitan
Sonchus oleraceus Linnaeussmooth sow-thistlecosmopolitanSonchus arvensis, S. asper and S. oleraceus, three common weeds of cultiva-tion, have doubtless not been differentiated in folk medicine, the only recordof herbal use attributable to one of them speciﬁcally being the result of a Lin-colnshire user pointing out S. arvensis to a botanist.71Probably all three sharemuch the same properties, in particular the white juice that has given rise tothe names ‘milkweed’, ‘milkwort’ and ‘milk thistle’ in England and Irelandalike and been widely applied to warts in both countries. In Wales, however,where the plants’ association with pigs seems to have been particularly strong,with even a magical tinge, they are said to have been reserved for applying to286 SonchusSonchus oleraceus,smooth sow-thistle(Green 1902, ﬁg. 376)
a gash made by the hoof or teeth of a hog.72Also, to the seventeenth-centuryEnglish antiquarian John Aubrey we owe an unlocalised record of the use ofthe heads for relieving cramp.73The Irish records have yielded only one additional use: for burns inWestmeath.74Mycelis muralis (Linnaeus) Dumortierwall lettuceEurope, Asia Minor, north-western Africa; introduced into NorthAmerica, New ZealandAccording to the Dublin botanist Caleb Threlkeld, writing in 1726,‘the poorpeople’in Ireland boiled Mycelis muralis in a posset to take against fevers.Ta raxacum officinale Weber, in the broad sensedandelionEurasia; introduced into North America, AustralasiaVying with elder and nettles as the wild plant drawn on most widely andheavily in the British Isles for folk medicine, dandelion also rivals the docksin the extent to which it is used and known for one purpose in particular: inthis case for promoting the ﬂow of urine and thus assisting kidney and asso-ciated troubles in general. Renowned all over Europe for that diuretic effect,Ta raxacum officinale features in the folk records too near-universally for log-ging of those in terms of individual counties to serve any useful purpose.Even with that group of ailments set aside, there still remain 333 Britishand Irish records traced for dandelion’s numerous other uses. Chief amongthose, by a big margin, accounting for almost exactly one-quarter of thattotal, is the plant’s application to warts, a practice known from most parts ofboth countries.After that in popularity of use come coughs, colds and respi-ratory troubles (55 records). All the remaining leading uses are mainly orwholly Irish except for the plant’s service as a tonic to ‘cleanse the blood’ andpurge the system of skin complaints and boils; the combined total of 38records for that include several from southern English counties and parts ofScotland. Britain’s share of the large number of minor applications is alsomarkedly smaller than Ireland’s. These include indigestion in Dorset75andEssex,76corns in Devon,77stings in Somerset,78scarlet fever in Leicester-shire,79lip cancer in Norfolk,80ulcers in Argyllshire81and internal pains ingeneral in the Highlands.82Ireland’s use of the dandelion has been markedly more diverse thanBritain’s. The two countries’ combined total of 55 records for coughs, colds  Daisies 287
and respiratory troubles includes a large number for‘consumption’, all 25 forthe last of these Irish. If the British and Irish records for application to livertrouble (24) and jaundice (22) are added together,those constitute the fourthlargest ailment overall—and the majority of them are Irish. So are most ofthose for use as a cleansing tonic (38 records jointly), for stomach pains orupsets (24) and for rheumatism (19). Heart trouble, however, seems an ex-clusively Irish affliction as far as the use of dandelion is concerned, and the 21records are noticeably numerous alongthe western coast from Leitrim to Limer-ick. Finally, in the long‘tail’of much moreminor applications,normal in the case ofmost widely used folk herbs, Ireland ap-pears to have had a monopoly with re-gard to cuts (Cavan,83Wicklow,84Limer-ick,85Kerry86), nervousness (Cavan,87Wicklow,88Limerick89),thrush (Co.Dub-lin,90Carlow,91Limerick92), sprains andswellings (Kildare,93Limerick94), weak orbroken bones (Limerick,95Kerry96),head-aches (Cavan,97Limerick98), diabetes(Kilkenny99), sore eyes (Roscommon100),external cancers (Carlow101), anaemia(specific record untraced102) and—theultimate cure—‘every disease’ (Tipper-ary103). Rather curiously, the only oneswith Irish records to complement Brit-ish ones are for indigestion (Donegal,104Carlow105) and corns (Co. Dublin106).Uniquely Irish also is the wide reputationdandelions are said to have once enjoyedin parts of the country for easing tooth-ache, allegedly because their much-toothed leaves were held to be a signa-ture.107Another belief associated with theleaves, recorded from Limerick, was thatto be effective as a tonic those with awhite vein had to be eaten by a man andthose with a red one by a woman.108288 Ta raxacum officinaleTaraxacum officinale, dandelion (Bock1556, p. 100)

Daisies 289Pilosella officinarum F. W. Schultz & Schultz ‘Bipontinus’Hieracium pilosella Linnaeusmouse-ear hawkweedtemperate and subarctic Europe, western Asia; introduced into North America, New ZealandUsually known simply as ‘mouse-ear’ and a cause of the misattribution ofrecords to mouse-ear chickweed (Cerastium spp.) or forget-me-not (thegeneric name of which, Myosotis, has the same meaning), Pilosella offici-Pilosella officinarum,mouse-ear hawk-weed (Fuchs 1543,ﬁg. 343)
290 Pilosella officinarumnarum has been a widely favoured herb for coughs, especially whoopingcough, and throat infections in parts of England (Hampshire,109Kent,110Suf-folk,111Staffordshire112) and the Isle of Man.113A specially Manx herb, it hasbeen used in that island, too, as a diuretic114as well as to ‘draw’splinters andpromote ‘healing pus’.115The name ‘felon herb’ recorded in Cornwall116hintsat one further use.Almost all those have been Irish uses also: for whooping cough inMeath117and Limerick,118for urinary trouble in Roscommon,119West-meath120and Wicklow,121and as a salve for burns (Wicklow122), whitlows(Meath123) and other sores (Cavan124).The concentration of records in the Isle of Man and the Irish counties oneither side of Dublin may possibly have some signiﬁcance.Hieracium Linnaeushawkweedmainly arctic, alpine and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere; introduced into New ZealandAs Pilosella officinarum seems to have been known in general as ‘mouse-ear’,without the addition of ‘hawkweed’so favoured by book authors, it can prob-ably be safely taken that the plant recorded under the latter name as in use in‘Ireland’ (part unspeciﬁed) as a jaundice remedy125was one or more of thenumerous asexual microspecies of Hieracium. That the complaint is notamong the folk uses traced for mouse-ear adds strength to that assumption.Filago vulgaris LamarckF. germanica Linnaeus, not Hudsoncommon cudweedcentral and southern Europe, western Asia, North Africa, Canary Islands; introduced into North America, New ZealandAnaphalis margaritacea (Linnaeus) BenthamAmerican cudweed, pearly everlastingNorth America; introduced into EuropeUnder the name Centunculus (a generic name long used by botanists for theminuscule plant now called Anagallis minima (Linnaeus) E. H. L. Krause),William Turner described a herb ‘thought to be good for chafinge of anyeman’s flesh with goynge or rydinge’, for which reason it was known in hisnative Northumberland, he wrote,as‘Chaf[e]weed’and in Yorkshire as‘cud-weed’.126Though some authors127have argued that he must have been refer-ring to heath cudweed (Gnaphalium sylvaticum Linnaeus), as he separately
mentioned the species now known as Filago vulgaris under a different name,others128have assumed he meant the latternonetheless.Matters have not beenhelped by the fact that John Gerard129chose to illustrate what he called‘Eng-lish cudweede’with a ﬁgure of what is unambiguously G. sylvaticum—thoughit is apparent from the text that he understood by ‘cudweed’ and ‘chaffweed’various Filago and Gnaphalium species in just a vague, collective sense.130Fortunately, Matthias de l’Obel in 1576 was a model of clarity by com-parison: his ﬁgure is undoubtedly Filago vulgaris, which he says the commonpeople in the west of England pound, steep in oil and boil for use on spots,bruises, cuts and lacerations.131By the west of England he doubtless meantthe neighbourhood of Bristol, where he practised medicine on ﬁrst arrivingas an immigrant, and Gnaphalium sylvaticum is much too scarce in that partof the country to have served as a herbal source.Though the use of the plant appears to have died out in England a centuryor so after de l’Obel wrote (John Parkinson in 1640 merely paraphrases hiswords), Filago vulgaris has borne a name in Manx, lus ny croshey, which hasbeen interpreted as implying a herbal application of some (unknown)kind.132At the same time ‘cudweed’ can be short for the American cudweedor pearly everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea, a garden plant which is onrecord as smoked like tobacco for a cough or headache in Suffolk.133Thiswas probably the ‘cudweed’reported from Wexford in the 1930s as a whoop-ing-cough cure.134Antennaria dioica (Linnaeus) Gaertnermountain everlasting, cat’s-ear, cat’s-footnorthern and central Europe, northern and western Asia,North America‘A plant that grows wild named cat’s-ear’ when chewed and mixed with cob-webs has been used in Clare for staunching bleeding from cuts.135Anten-naria dioica has a reputation as astringent and styptic, and happens to occurparticularly frequently in the calcareous turf of the Burren for which thatcounty is botanically renowned.Inula helenium Linnaeuselecampane, wild parsnip, horseheal, scabwortcentral Asia; introduced into Europe, western Asia, Japan, NorthAmerica, New ZealandInula helenium falls into the same category as greater celandine (Chelido-nium majus): an ancient herb largely fallen into disuse but lingering on stub-  Daisies 291
292 Inula heleniumbornly in semi-wild conditions. Probably a native of central Asia, it was muchvalued by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and, serving for food as well asmedicine, was evidently a favourite subsistence plant of early Christian times,as in Ireland it is found on some of the islets off the coasts as well as on andaround ancient monastic sites more generally. Its ability to survive grazing bysheep probably accounts for this remarkable persistence.Inula helenium, elecampane (Bock 1556, p. 65)
A veterinary medicine as much as a human one, the plant’s roots containa white starchy powder extracted by boiling, which has been drunk in par-ticular for lung and chest complaints, pulmonary tuberculosis, whoopingcough and asthma (Norfolk,136Orkney137and the Isle of Man138as far asBritain is concerned).Wounds (in Sussex139) and toothache (in Cheshire140)are further ailments for which there are British records.In Ireland the lung and chest application has similarly been the main one(Cavan,141Wexfo rd142and doubtless—as the cough cure obtained from mea-can uilian or ‘wild parsnip’—Clare143and Limerick,144too).Pulicaria dysenterica (Linnaeus) Bernhardicommon ﬂeabaneEurope, Asia Minor, North Africa; introduced into New Zealand(Folk credentials questionable) A plant of the herbals, hopefully identiﬁed bytheir authors with one celebrated in Classical times for insecticidal properties,Pulicaria dysenterica enjoyed a vogue for that purpose in what seem to havebeen relatively sophisticated circles and the only two allegedly folk recordssound suspiciously like hand-downs from book learning. In Devon it wasrecommended to be gathered and dried for burning every morning in roomsto rid them of ﬂies,145and in Sussex it was one of four strewing herbs princi-pally employed to keep away fleas.145aThat those records are both fromsouthernmost England, despite the plant’s wide distribution elsewhere in theBritish Isles, supports the impression that it was at best a marginal interloperas far as the folk tradition was concerned. Tansy, mugwort and the worm-woods have amply served the same purpose instead.Solidago virgaurea LinnaeusgoldenrodEurasia; introduced into New ZealandIn learned medicine long popular as a wound herb, Solidago virgaurea has lin-gered on in use for that purpose in Sussex,146the East Riding of Yorkshire147and the Hebrides.148Martin Martin, to whom we owe our knowledge of itssurvival in the last-named, recorded it as an ingredient in two different oint-ments, one combined with ‘all-heal’(Stachys spp.?) and applied to wounds inLewis in the Outer Hebrides, the other smeared in Skye on fractures at thestage of healing when splints could be removed.149In Ireland, however, the ailments for which this common plant has beenrecorded in use are very different from those, so much so as to suggest thatnot only was it never a wound herb there (perhaps purple-loosestrife,  Daisies 293
Lythrum salicaria, took its place?) but the treatment of wounds may neverhave been one of its functions in the British Isles folk repertory in its pristinestate. In Cavan,150where herbal uses are known with particular complete-ness, only heart trouble, stomach upsets and kidney problems feature in therecords. Stomach upsets are the function of the plant in Cork,151too. InLouth, on the other hand, its leaves have been boiled as a remedy for colds,152and it may be because that use extended to pulmonary tuberculosis that aninfusion was drunk in Londonderry for the spitting of blood.153In otherparts of Ulster,though, its reputation, and that a well-known one, was merelyfor curing ﬂatulence.154Bellis perennis LinnaeusdaisyEurope, western Asia; introduced into North America, AustralasiaConsidering its near-ubiquity, it is striking that Bellis perennis has featured asa folk herb only to a limited extent. Though William Turner knew it in hisnative Northumberland as ‘banwort’, ‘because it helpeth bones to knytagaine’155(a statement repeated by Caleb Threlkeld who, though raised inCumberland, was probably merely parroting Turner), no further mention ofthat use has been discovered. Instead, as far as Britain is concerned, its func-tions subsequently seem to have been limited to serving as an ointment—either alone or combined with other herbs—for burns (Hampshire156) orcuts and bruises (the Highlands and Western Isles157), or as an infusion madefrom the ﬂower-heads drunk for coughs and colds (Wiltshire158) or eye trou-bles (the Highlands159). But simply eating the ﬂower-heads, for curing boils(Devon,160Dorset161) or toothache (Cumbria162), sounds like a procedurebased on magic rather than on any supposed chemical inﬂuence: two of themsufficed for toothache, but at least in Dorset seven or nine, those magic-ladennumbers, were required to heal a boil and had to be picked from plants grow-ing close enough to be covered with one foot.The plant is also on record in Ireland as an ointment for burns and as aneye lotion but in both cases much more widely: from at least six counties,but entirely different ones in the case of each and with no apparent geo-graphical patterns. As a cure for coughs and colds, however, records havebeen noted only from Cavan163and Mayo,164though it has been used inRoscommon165for headaches.A treatment for boils is known from Wexfordbut of a down-to-earth kind, involving boiling pieces with soap and sugar ina tin until the mixture turns black.166Cavan similarly appears to have been294 Solidago virgaurea

Daisies 295unique in ﬁnding a use for stomach and/or liver complaints.167It is especially in applying this plant to skin troubles,though, that Ireland differs most from Britain. Broadlyclassifiable under that head are records for ringwormfrom Leitrim,168whitlows169and chilblains170fromMeath, ‘blasts’ (facial swellings) from Carlow171anderysipelas from Donegal.172Tanacetum vulgare LinnaeustansyEurope, Siberia; introduced into NorthAmerica, AustralasiaThough convincingly a native of beaches andriversides in other parts of north-westernEurope, Tanacetum vulgare may owe its pres-ence in the British Isles wholly to human inﬂu-ence and perhaps in large part to former culti-vation for herbal purposes. Significantly, itsGaelic name, recorded as early as 1698 fromSkye, translates as ‘French herb’. With proper-ties similar to wormwood, its primary usethrough the centuries and overmuch of Europe has been as a repel-lent: either drunk as an infusion topurge the system of intestinalworms (for which its effectiveness iswell attested) or strewn about in thefresh state to keep away any nox-ious insects and even mice. Recordsof the former practice in Britain havebeen traced from Lincolnshire,173Skye174and Orkney,175and of the latter from South Wales,176the East Riding ofYo r kshire,177Berwickshire178and the Highlands179—in other words, curiously, their known distributionsdo not overlap. In the days when it was believed thatinfections were transmitted by inhaling them,some of Orkney’s inhabitants so trusted in theplant’s effectiveness that they made a habit ofTanacetum vulgare, tansy (Brunfels 1530, p. 250)
296 Tanacetum vulgarecarrying a piece of it between their upper lip and their nose.180Similarly, tokeep at bay the inﬂuence of the ‘miasma’ arising from the ground that wassupposed to give rise to ague, country folk in Hampshire181and Sussex182took the precaution of lining their boots with pieces of the plant.A toxic oil powerful enough to rid the system of worms and other para-sites would have commended itself as an abortifacient, too,if taken in a quan-tity large enough, and the plant is on record as used for that purpose in Wilt-shire,183Gloucestershire184and the Cambridgeshire Fens.185In all three ofthose, however, it also had a reputation for aiding conception, presumablybecause of a separate relaxing effect. Such an effect could explain the drink-ing of tansy tea to counter palpitations in Gloucestershire,186rheumatismand indigestion in Essex187and period pains in Norfolk.188In the ‘north ofEngland’ where an alternative was to apply a hot compress of the plant to theseat of any rheumatic pain, drinking that tea three times a day was held toclear the system of any tendency to gout189; it was as an antidote to gout thatthe plant was once much used in Scotland also190(though possibly on therecommendation of John Gerard’s Herball, as a decoction of the root).Ireland’s uses seem to have been broadly similar but more thinly spread.As a vermicidal purge it has featured in Londonderry191and Louth192(andfor veterinary purposes in further counties, too); in ‘Ulster’, where it wasextensively grown in cottage gardens, it was valued as an emmenagogue ofmuch power193as well as for indigestion and pains in the joints, these lastrelieved by being bathed with the product of boiling the leaves in saltedwater194; in the Aran Islands the juice has been drunk for fevers195and insome unspeciﬁed parts the plant is said to have shared that northern Britishpopularity for gout.196Cavan is alone idiosyncratic in having yielded recordsas a jaundice cure and as an application to cuts.197That tansy is predomi-nantly a herb of Ulster may be evidence for its having been introduced pri-marily from Scotland.Seriphidium maritimum (Linnaeus) PoljakovArtemisia maritima Linnaeussea wormwoodEurope, south-western and central AsiaThough Seriphidium maritimum has properties similar to the two Artemisiaspecies (of which more below), its effects were found to be weaker and so ledto its recommendation by village doctresses in preference to its inland coun-terpart for ridding children of worms.198Apothecaries also gave it priority

Daisies 297over the commoner plant because its less bitter taste gave it more ‘consumerappeal’.199Once collected along the Sussex coast200on a commercial scale,the name ‘savin’, by which some people knew it, suggests that, by borrowingthat from juniper, the ‘deleterious purposes too generally known’ for whichthat collecting was said to take place201may have been as an abortifacient atleast in part. In the south of Scotland, though, it was to treat fevers and con-sumption that the peasants apparently primarily favoured it: Lanarkshireand Galloway folk tales tell of its being recommended by mermaids,202as if tounderline that only the maritime plant would do. Another use, reported fromEssex, was to rub one’s forehead with a handful of it to cure a headache.203Artemisia vulgaris Linnaeusmugwort, muggonsnorthern temperate zoneA common component of the tundra vegetation that clothed the British Islesat the termination of the Ice Age, Artemisia vulgaris has lingered on in otherparts of northern Europe as a member of the natural vegetation of the driftlines at or above the level of high-water spring tides (like tansy). In Britainand Ireland, however, it appears in modern times to have been confinedexclusively to man-made habitats,especially dry waste ground, on which it iscommon throughout the lowlands. Like other nitrophiles, it may haveacquired this weed status even as early as Mesolithic times and is likely tohave been available for exploitation for several millennia at least. The medico-magical potency with which this visually unprepossessing plant has beencredited through much of Eurasia and the strikingly similar beliefs associatedwith it in different regions of that landmass indeed suggest that it may beone of the oldest herbs known to mankind.204Sacred to thunder gods, itspower to ward off evil inﬂuences was believed to be greatest on MidsummerEve, the time of year when light and heat were rated their most intense.In thatrole it has rivalled, and probably preceded, St John’s-wort and attained a par-ticularly exalted status in the Isle of Man, where the custom was revived c.1924 of wearing a sprig of it on Tynwald Day, when the island’s ancient par-liament is traditionally convened for an open-air proclamation of each year’snew laws.Why, though, did it attract such an extraordinarily widespread and tena-cious faith in its efficacy? It is only slightly aromatic and its ﬂowers are incon-spicuous. It is, however, narcotic and was probably once a favourite divina-tory,a use which is known to have persisted into more recent times in East
298 Artemisia vulgarisPrussia. The practice of smoking the dried leaves as a substitute for tobacco,general among country lads in Berkshire till late in the nineteenth century(under the name ‘docko’205), may well be a relic of that, for unlike colt’s-footit appears to have had no medical justiﬁcations attached to it. As the plantshares with tansy and the wormwoods vermicidal properties, that it may havebeen used like them to purge the system of internal parasites is another pos-sibility. If so, however, those two rivals must have usurped such former pop-ularity as it may have enjoyed for that, for no mentions of such an applicationhave been found. (An eighteenth-century record from Moray of its use as apurge, boiled in whey,206does not indicate the purpose of the purging.) Andthough ‘mugwort’means midge-herb, it seems to have been rated much infe-rior to those others for keeping away insects, too—records of its serving thatfunction have been traced from Devon,207Sussex208and Berwickshire209alone.A further well-attested property of the plant is its ability to restore men-strual ﬂow, ease delivery and cleanse the womb, for which functions it wasonce highly valued by midwives and nurses. Not for nothing is the genusnamed after the Greek goddess Artemis, the patron of maternity and child-birth, for since ancient times mugwort has been the female plant above allothers, the mater herbarum or herba matrum. It may indeed be on account ofthe similarity of its leaves that motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) acquired,through misidentiﬁcation, a comparable degree of respect in the Isle of Manunder the name ‘she-vervain’. Though long valued in official medicine incases of difficult parturition, mugwort features in the folk records in this andallied connections much less than expected but has probably suffered, likeabortifacients in general, from a degree of reticence on the part of both col-lectors and informants. Only Northamptonshire,210the Highlands,211andEriskay in the Outer Hebrides212appear to have yielded information, the lasttwo in the guise of liath-lus, a Gaelic name identiﬁed213with Artemisia vul-garis. Tansy’s comparable role has already been referred to above.In common with tansy once again (and wormwood, too) mugwort hasalso enjoyed a reputation for easing colds, heavy coughs and especially con-sumption (Cornwall,214South Wales,215‘Scotland’,216Londonderry217) aswell as sciatica (Cumbria218). With wormwood it seems to have served as adigestive interchangeably (Berwickshire,219the Highlands220) and as adiuretic like the other two it was once eaten as a vegetable in Devon in orderto dissolve ‘the stone’.221Finally, it is said to have shared in Ireland worm-wood’s apparently rare use there as a treatment for epilepsy.222

Daisies 299Artemisia absinthium Linnaeuswormwoodtemperate Eurasia; introduced into North and South America,New ZealandIn contrast to mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), another favourite of Classicalmedicine, A. absinthium, is everywhere an obvious cottage garden herb thathas slipped out here and there into the wilds and in no part of the BritishArtemisia absinthium,wormwood (Fuchs1543, ﬁg. 1)
300 Artemisia absinthiumIsles is it anything like so common.It can only have been introduced for pur-poses for which that long-standing counterpart had shown itself inadequate.Wormwood’s main use has been as a digestive and for curing stomachupsets. This is outstandingly true of Wales, where it has been found fulﬁllingthat function in every county—to an extent that it emerges as one of the mostwidely used of all contemporary herbal medicines in the rural parts of thatcountry.223It has also found favour for the same purpose in Essex,224Derby-shire,225Berwickshire226and Orkney227—a curious scatter of counties whichmay merely be the fragments of a distribution formerly more general.Only slightly less widespread has been wormwood’s popularity as aninsecticide (Wiltshire,228Sussex,229Suffolk,230parts of Wales231), which hasconsiderably outstripped its deployment against intestinal worms (northernWales,232Inverness-shire,233Orkney234). When taken internally, though, ithas been well recognised as having risks: too large a dose (more than a table-spoonful in the case of adults) causes vomiting and pain.235In ‘some parts ofrural England’ it has also served as a disinfectant: in one house with cases ofscarlet fever the ﬂoor of the bedroom was washed with a strong decoctionmade from the achenes.236The plant has also been valued almost as much as a tonic and puriﬁer ofthe system (Essex,237Montgomeryshire,238Flintshire,239Cheshire,240Ork-ney241) and for rheumatic complaints (Essex,242Norfolk,243Pembroke-shire244). The exceptional strength of its following in Wales has found furtherreﬂection there in its use for colds in Pembrokeshire,245kidney trouble inMontgomeryshire246and—perhaps the same thing—colic (in combinationwith syrup of elderberries) in ‘South Wales’,247while as a narcotic it has servedas a cure for insomnia in Cardiganshire.248Finally, a decoction of the planthas been taken for diabetes in the Isle of Man.249The near-absence of Irish records for wormwood (and mugwort, too) ishard to explain. The sole ones traced are as a remedy for stomach pains inMayo250and as an insecticide251and a cure for epilepsy (by pouring the juiceinto the sufferer’s mouth) in unidentiﬁed parts of the country.252Achillea ptarmica LinnaeussneezewortEurope, south-western Asia, Siberia; introduced into North America,New ZealandDespite its English name, no folk records of the use of Achillea ptarmica forcolds have been discovered, though it allegedly promoted the ﬂow of salivaand has been claimed effective therefore against toothache.253An infusion