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CHAPTER 10 Ivy and Umbellifers

Dicotyledonous flowering plants in the order Apiales and families Araliaceae
(ivies) and Apiaceae (parsleys) are included in this chapter.

Araliaceae

Hedera helix Linnaeus
ivy
western and central Europe, south-western Asia; introduced into
North America, New Zealand
Few other herbs have been resorted to so generally—virtually throughout
the British Isles—for one ailment in particular as Hedera helix has been for
corns (or, much more rarely, bunions or verrucas). Usually the leaves were
soaked in vinegar to soften them and then bound on as a poultice; less often,
they were boiled and the resulting liquid rubbed in; more simply still, the
leaves were worn inside a sock. Reputedly, the corn dropped off in a matter of
days, without any pain.
The reputation for curing corns extended to warts (Essex,^1 Somerset^2 )
and ‘cold sores’ or tetters (Berwickshire^3 ), and from those it seems to have
been a logical progression to skin disorders of a variety of kinds, of which
British examples are rashes in Dorset^4 and ringworm in Berwickshire.^5 A
special treatment in that connection has been the placing of a cap made from
the leaves on the head of a child with eczema, apparently exclusive to parts of
Scotland (Fife,^6 Colonsay^7 in the Inner Hebrides) and even more parts of Ire-
land. A remarkably similar distribution to that is shown by the records for
treating burns and scalds with ointment made from the boiled leaves mixed