260 Ve ronica beccabunga
Ve ronica beccabunga Linnaeus
brooklime
Europe, temperate Asia, North Africa; introduced into North America
Mainly Irish as a folk herb,Ve ronica beccabunga has shared with V. officinalis
a reputation for easing colds and coughs (Wicklow,^221 Limerick,^222 Clare^223 )
or as an expectorant (the Belfast area^224 ), but in other ways its use has dis-
played a pattern markedly different from other speedwells. Valued as a
diuretic, it has treated kidney and urinary troubles in ‘Ulster’,^225 Wicklow^226
and Clare,^227 while it has served as a ‘spring juice’ for cleansing the system of
impurities and curing scurvy in Clare^228 and Cork^229 and been applied to
wounds in Londonderry.^230 But the famous eighteenth-century doctress of
Macroom in Co. Cork, Mrs Elizabeth Pearson, whose renowned cure for
scrofula based on this plant made her such a fortune that she was able to buy
a house in the most fashionable part of London,^231 would appear to have
been alone in the folk community in prescribing it for that.
Outside Ireland the use for colds seems to have been reported solely from
the Isle of Man,^232 but the very few British records are, curiously, almost all
either unlocalised or unattributable to a county with certainty. The plant has
been valued for healing ‘bad legs’ (leg ulcers produced by scurvy?) in Hamp-
shire^233 and perhaps also in Devon,^234 applied to fresh wounds in, probably,
Norfolk,^235 and in at least some part of the country people are said to have
placed the bruised leaves on burns.^236
Melampyrum pratense Linnaeus
cow-wheat
Europe,western Asia
(Name ambiguity) Conceivably Melampyrum pratense was the plant known
as ‘golden wheat’ recorded as boiled in Cavan for kidney ailments.^237
Euphrasia officinalis Linnaeus, in the broad sense
eyebright
northern temperate zone; introduced into New Zealand
Euphrasia officinalis seems a unique instance of a well-known and widely
used herb which has apparently been valued in folk medicine for one purpose
only: to remedy eye troubles (of just about every kind short of blindness).
That the mildly astringent juice does act at least as a comforting lotion
appears well attested, though physicians learned to advise against its use
because of its danger if that was done to excess. An ancient remedy, recorded
from much of Europe and almost every part of the British Isles, it normally