have been reported in use in Britain. Of these, only urinary complaints have
been found recorded as a use from as many counties (Londonderry,^55 Cavan,^56
Westmeath^57 ) as in Britain. Otherwise the Irish records have yielded only
warts (Waterford^58 ) and the cleansing of the system (Kerry^59 ).
Malva moschata Linnaeus
musk-mallow
Europe, North Africa; introduced into North America, New Zealand
(Name ambiguity suspected) A statement by David Moore, in his report on
the botany of Londonderry,^60 that Malva moschata was generally mistaken
there for the ‘true marsh mallow’ appears to have been a slip for M. sylvestris.
The ailments to which he says it was applied are ones recorded from other
Irish counties for the latter.
Droseraceae
Drosera Linnaeus
sundew
northern temperate zone
‘Our Englishmen nowadays set very much by it, and holde that it is good for
consumptions and swouning, and faintness of the harte, but I have no sure
experience of this, nether have I red of anye olde writer what vertues it hath,
wherefore I dare promise nothing if it.’ So wrote William Turner in the six-
teenth century in his Herball,without, unfortunately, leaving it quite clear
that the uses he mentions were folk ones (as he seems to imply by saying he
had encountered them in no written work). If indeed they were, though, they
would appear to have disappeared without trace, for the only English use
found recorded in recent times for Drosera has been for warts, in the North
Riding of Yorkshire.^61 The juice is so acrid that just a droplet or two will burn
off one of those, according to William Withering,^62 writing perhaps from
first-hand experience. Presumably it was because of this acridity that sun-
dew was valued in the Highlands for ridding the hair of lice.^63
In Ireland, on the other hand, the plants have enjoyed a reputation in
places if not for consumption at least for whooping cough and asthma. For
the former, the leaves were boiled in milk (sometimes that of asses, for pref-
erence^64 ), and that was given to the children to swallow, a procedure followed
also when sundew served there, too, as a jaundice remedy—only in that case
the drinking had to continue for ten days or more.^65 For asthma the leaves
were chopped up finely and the juice squeezed out and bottled, a few drops
110 Malva, Lavatera andAlthaea