poses, contemporary though that utilising is, for in the Isles of Scilly the juice
of the fleshy leaves is rubbed on to sunburn.^59
Chenopodiaceae
Chenopodium album Linnaeus
fat-hen
temperate regions worldwide
Assuming Chenopodium album was the plant known there as ‘lambs’ quar-
ters’—one of the alternative vernacular names of this species—a decoction of
its stems was till relatively recently drunk in Co. Dublin for rheumatism.^60
Though now treated as a weed and generally disregarded, it was formerly val-
ued as a nutritious food along with nettles and dandelions. It was, for exam-
ple, added to soup in spring in Ayrshire,^61 perhaps semi-medicinally.
Undoubtedly present in the British Isles in prehistoric times, that it was ever
a native is open to question, however.
Salicornia europaea Linnaeus, in the broad sense
glasswort, marsh samphire
western Europe, North Africa, North America
Better known, like Chenopodium album,as a source of food, the gathering of
Salicornia europaea from the saltmarshes of Norfolk has extended to its use
there as an ointment for cracked hands and skin troubles more generally.^62 It
has also been consumed in that county as a spring tonic.^63
Portulacaceae
Montia fontana Linnaeus
blinks
temperate regions worldwide
A plant known in the Highlands as fliodh Moire,identified as ‘marsh chick-
weed’ and described as growing in pools and puddles,^64 was presumably
Montia fontana.Its applications—heated and then placed on a festering hand
or foot, and as a treatment for rheumatism—are ones for which common
chickweed (Stellaria media) has been valued pre-eminently. In the Badenoch
district of Inverness-shire^65 a distinction was carefully made between the
chickweed of gardens and a kind growing on the moors, the latter regarded
as superior. Only blinks, appears to fit this combination of features: it could
be mistaken for chickweed, and, unlike that, is characteristic of moorland
seepages.
90 Carpobrotus