heart in Clare^185 ;coughs in Wicklow^186 and asthma in Tipperary^187 ;rheuma-
tism in Cavan^188 and ‘a bad stomach’ in Limerick.^189 Employment for heart-
burn in Cavan^190 seems to be the only one not known from Britain.
For most purposes a tea was brewed from the young ‘tops’ or the flowers,
but for heartburn the ‘tops’ were chewed and the juice swallowed, while in
Limerick it was the seeds that were boiled, and in the Highlands a mat of the
plant with which the temples were poulticed for insomnia.
Vaccinium oxycoccos Linnaeus
cranberry
northern Eurasia, northern half of North America
Once a common plant in the Fens of East Anglia before they were so largely
drained,Vaccinium oxycoccos has been credibly suggested^191 as the identity of
the ‘fen-berries’ or ‘marsh whortles’ said by Thomas Moffet in the seven-
teenth century to be in use in the Isle of Ely as an ‘astringent’.^192
Vaccinium vitis-idaea Linnaeus
cowberry
arctic and northern Eurasia, mountains of southern Europe, North
America
In Cumbria^193 the leaves ofVaccinium vitis-idaea were one of the ingredi-
ents in a concoction that produced an inhalant for a blocked nose or sinuses.
It is unexpected that this often abundant moorland species seems to be other-
wise absent from the folk medicine records.
Vaccinium myrtillus Linnaeus
bilberry, blaeberry,fraughan
northern Eurasia, mountains of southern Europe; introduced into
North America
The uses of the popular food-for-free Vaccinium myrtillus bear some simi-
larity to those of ‘heather’, especially on account of its shared astringency.
‘Blaeberry tea’ has been widely valued in north-western Scotland for dis-
solving kidney stones and countering other ailments of the urinary tract.^194
There, too, but perhaps at one time much more widely still, in both the High-
lands^195 and the Western Isles from Arran^196 at least north to Skye,^197 its
berries seem to have rivalled tormentil (Potentilla erecta) as a treatment for
diarrhoea. A further reputation enjoyed in the Highlands^198 was for its power
to soothe pain, recalling the application of ‘heather’ to rheumatism. Yet again
like ‘heather’ it has been found useful against symptoms accompanying colds:
St John’s-worts to Primulas 123