ticosus) for countering diarrhoea, in Cornwall,^227 Dorset,^228 Hertfordshire,^229
Leicestershire^230 and if ‘internal disorders’ is a euphemism for that at least in
part, in Sussex,^231 Northamptonshire^232 and Lancashire,^233 too.That same
property could explain the making of a jelly from the berries for treating ‘a
relaxed throat’ in the Isle of Man.^234 Paradoxically, though, the tree has also
been credited with a relaxing effect: in Wiltshire an infusion of the inner bark
has been drunk for piles,^235 and in the Highlands the flowers have provided
a laxative.^236
A third group of complaints for which blackthorn has been valued com-
prises coughs (Norfolk,^237 Denbighshire ‘and elsewhere’^238 ), sore throats
(Norfolk^239 ) and fevers (the Highlands^240 ). In Suffolk, sloe wine has also been
esteemed as a cure for colic,^241 and in Anglesey the berries and leaves have
been chewed to lower blood pressure.^242
Irish records are inexplicably scarce. The antidiarrhoea use widely
recorded in England is known also from ‘Ulster’, but there as an infusion
made from the thorns.^243 In Cavan, sloe gin has been reckoned good for the
kidneys,^244 while in Tipperary a decoction of the bark has been given as a
daily dose to children troubled with worms.^245
Prunus avium (Linnaeus) Linnaeus
wild cherry, gean
Europe, western Asia, North Africa; introduced into North America,
New Zealand
Though the naturalised morello cherry (Prunus cerasusLinnaeus) is now-
adays as widespread as the native species and tends not to be distinguished
from it by non-botanists, of the two, onlyP. a viumwould have been available
in earlier times for use in folk medicine. As its scientific name implies,P.
aviumis also sometimes called ‘bird cherry’, a name which more properly
belongs to another native species, the more northernP. p a d u sLinnaeus.
ThoughP. p a d u shas been exploited for medicine in Fennoscandia, the sole
folk remedy using it in the British Isles that has been traced is a veterinary one.
The only use ofPrunus avium in folk medicine seems to have been for
colds or coughs, for which records have been traced from three widely sepa-
rated areas: Norfolk^246 and the Highlands^247 in Britain, and Mayo^248 in Ire-
land. The record from the Highlands, though, sounds suspiciously like a
learned rather than a strictly folk use in that it involved dissolving the gum (as
recommended by Dioscorides) in wine, which was hardly a liquid to be found
in the average croft.
Currants, Succulents and Roses 153