Thalictrum minus Linnaeus
lesser meadow-rue
Eurasia, Alaska; introduced into New Zealand
Widespread round the coast of Scotland, especially in the calcareous coastal
grassland of its north and west known as machair, and on sand dunes,Thalic-
trum minus evidently substituted there for the more southerly T.flavum.
Known as rú beag,it was valued in the Highlands primarily as a purge,^59
sometimes taken expressly to kill parasitic worms.^60 James Robertson on his
1768 tour found a decoction in use by women in Skye and Mull for obstruc-
tion of the menses.^61 On Colonsay, on the other hand, it was said to have
been a remedy for rheumatism.^62
Berberidaceae
Berberis vulgaris Linnaeus
barberry
Europe; introduced into eastern North America, New Zealand
The use of parts of the shrub Berberis vulgaris,usually a decoction of the yel-
low inner bark, as a cure for jaundice, of which there are records from all over
Britain and Ireland, has been so deeply and widely entrenched in medicine
both learned and unlearned that it is impossible to be sure how far, if at all, it
held a place in the folk tradition independent of herbals and their readers.
Though it often grows far from habitations, even sometimes in the hedges of
ancient drove roads, the best botanical opinion now is that it is doubtfully
native anywhere in the British Isles, but presumptively bird-sown in all cases
from planted stock, perhaps over a very long period. In Cornwall, where, as
in some other parts of England, it is or was well known and widespread
enough to have acquired the name ‘jaundice tree’, it used to be frequently
planted in gardens and shrubberies expressly for herbal use.^63 Nevertheless,
it seems likely that in lowland areas, particularly in England, it was grown
and escaping from cultivation well back into the monastic period.
One of the very few members of the flora of the British Isles to have been
drawn on emphatically for one ailment above all others, barberry has even so
been utilised here and there for other purposes as well: in Devon as an ingre-
dient in a herbal mixture given to consumptives,^64 in Lincolnshire for gall
stones^65 and in the Highlands for a form of indigestion accompanied by bil-
ious vomiting known as ‘the boil’.^66
76 Thalictrum minus