belief which must by definition have come from learned medicine. The name
still lingers on—or modified to ‘English mandrake’ by those wise to the con-
fusion. A variant of the belief, surviving in the Fens of East Anglia^90 if not
elsewhere, was that mandrake occurred in two forms, one of which was this
species and the other the vaguely similar black bryony (Tamus communis).
This notion came from the early herbals, whose authors took these species to
be respectively theampelos leukeandampelos agriadescribed by Dioscorides.
Asin similar cases in folk taxonomy where species were paired—one was
assumed to be the expression of the male principle in nature, the other of the
female one—mandrake had the reputation, preserved in the Forest of Dean in
Gloucestershire,^91 of being a powerful aphrodisiac and a procurer of fertility.
This found reflection medically in the restriction of the ‘male’ kind to the ail-
ments of women and mares and of the ‘female’ one to those of men and stal-
lions.^92 Asthe embodiment of the female principle, white bryony exerted the
greater power, an assumption given added credence by the greater violence of
its action (for which reason its use was reserved on the whole for animals). Its
acrid juice is so strongly purgative and blistering that it can cause gastritis,
and as few as a dozen of the berries may lead to death. As far as human beings
were concerned, it was a herb to be used only with extreme caution: Dorset
folk were therefore daring in taking it as a substitute for castor oil.^93 Indeed,
the only other record of its application to a human ailment seems to be an
unlocalised one for gout, reported by John Aubrey to John Ray in 1691: sup-
posedly, an old woman had cured that after many years by employing the leaf
of ‘wild vine’ (botanically identified asB. dioica).^94 People in Norfolk were
surely sensible to close with the plant’s powers no further than carrying a
piece of the root in their pocket as an antidote to rheumatism.^95
Salicaceae
Populus alba Linnaeus
white poplar
eastern Europe, western Asia, North Africa; introduced into other
temperate regions
(Folk credentials questionable) Although at least some of the poplars, includ-
ing the native aspen (Populus tremula Linnaeus), resemble willows in having
salicin in their bark,P. alba is the only member of the genus, an introduced
species, for which records have been found in the folk medicine literature of
the British Isles. They relate to north-eastern Somerset, where an infusion of
the bark was held to be good for fevers and for relieving night sweats and
114 Bryonia dioica