202 Menyanthes trifoliata
Menyanthes trifoliata, bogbean
(Green 1902, fig. 424)
and English ones limited—Sussex,^86 Kent (?),^87 Hertfordshire^88 and, as one of
five ingredients in a mixture, the East Riding of Yorkshire^89 —in Wales it has
been recorded from at least six of its counties^90 with a marked peak in Den-
bighshire,^91 and that total would rise to nine if one could be sure that by
‘backache’ people meant this, too. Confusingly, though, ‘backache’ is some-
times a synonym of kidney trouble—which is bogbean’s other principal
application in Wales, known from five counties there but apparently nowhere
else in Britain.^92
As it ‘helps to open up the tubes’, bogbean has been a natural choice in
Lewis in the Outer Hebrides for asthma^93 and elsewhere in Scotland for per-
sistent coughs (Argyllshire^94 ) and pulmonary tuberculosis (the Highlands^95 ),
while in the nearby Isle of Man it has been favoured for fevers.^96 More exclu-