Distribution Patterns 347country till very recently have the results that regional peculiarities are easier
to detect there and less likely to be the product of accidental bias in coverage.
For the same reasons it is more probable than not that the extent of Irish dis-
tinctiveness identified in the foregoing paragraphs is a reasonable approxi-
mation to reality. That distinctiveness might have been considerably greater,
indeed, had it not been for the massive movements of population from Ire-
land into Britain in the course of the past two centuries. These have made it
impossible to tell how far the numerous mainly Irish uses that have been
recorded in Britain are merely late transfers from one country to the other or
whether they constitute the fragments of distributions that were genuinely
common to the two previously. The more rural a record, however, the more
likely it is to belong in the second of these categories, for that immigration has
been very heavily concentrated in the larger towns and cities.
The superior quality of the Irish folk records may partly, but only partly,
account for the rather large number of plants that are widely plentiful mem-
bers of the native flora of both Ireland and Britain yet as medicinal herbs
emerge as Irish in the main. These include Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum
(water-cress),Alchemilla vulgaris in the broad sense (lady’s-mantle),Hedera
helix (ivy),Verbascum thapsus (great mullein),Ver onica beccabunga (brook-
lime),Centaurea nigra (common knapweed),Allium ursinum (ramsons) and
the genera Polypodium (polypodies) and Juncus (rushes). The bark of trees as
a source of remedies turns out to be a predominantly Irish trait, too. In the
case ofH. helix not only are the majority of the records for the principal uses
of that particularly popular medicinal plant Irish ones, but in Ireland it has
been noted in use for a considerably wider range of afflictions. There is a
strongly Irish tilt, similarly, to the distribution of just certain applications of
herbs that overall, across the British Isles as a whole, are more evenly spread:
of that ofPrimula vulgaris (primrose) and Phyllitis scolopendrium (hart’s-
tongue) in so far as they have been applied to burns or scalds, ofPrimula
veris (cowslip) when brought to bear on insomnia, ofStellaria media (chick-
weed) as a cure for swellings,Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) for jaundice
or liver trouble, and Geranium robertianum (herb-Robert) for bleeding. In all
of these cases the patterns that have emerged in this study may be no more
than accidental, the product of the comparative insufficiency, or at any rate
much greater patchiness, of the British data. Equally, though, they may reflect
reality. Only when much fuller information for Britain becomes available
will the uncertainties on this score have a chance of being resolved.