290 Pilosella officinarum
narum has been a widely favoured herb for coughs, especially whooping
cough, and throat infections in parts of England (Hampshire,^109 Kent,^110 Suf-
folk,^111 Staffordshire^112 ) and the Isle of Man.^113 A specially Manx herb, it has
been used in that island, too, as a diuretic^114 as well as to ‘draw’ splinters and
promote ‘healing pus’.^115 The name ‘felon herb’ recorded in Cornwall^116 hints
at one further use.
Almost all those have been Irish uses also: for whooping cough in
Meath^117 and Limerick,^118 for urinary trouble in Roscommon,^119 West-
meath^120 and Wicklow,^121 and as a salve for burns (Wicklow^122 ), whitlows
(Meath^123 ) and other sores (Cavan^124 ).
The concentration of records in the Isle of Man and the Irish counties on
either side of Dublin may possibly have some significance.
Hieracium Linnaeus
hawkweed
mainly arctic, alpine and temperate regions of the northern
hemisphere; introduced into New Zealand
As Pilosella officinarum seems to have been known in general as ‘mouse-ear’,
without the addition of ‘hawkweed’ so favoured by book authors, it can prob-
ably be safely taken that the plant recorded under the latter name as in use in
‘Ireland’ (part unspecified) as a jaundice remedy^125 was one or more of the
numerous asexual microspecies ofHieracium.That the complaint is not
among the folk uses traced for mouse-ear adds strength to that assumption.
Filago vulgaris Lamarck
F. germanica Linnaeus, not Hudson
common cudweed
central and southern Europe, western Asia, North Africa, Canary
Islands; introduced into North America, New Zealand
Anaphalis margaritacea (Linnaeus) Bentham
American cudweed, pearly everlasting
North America; introduced into Europe
Under the nameCentunculus(a generic name long used by botanists for the
minuscule plant now calledAnagallis minima(Linnaeus) E. H. L. Krause),
William Turner described a herb ‘thought to be good for chafinge of anye
man’s flesh with goynge or rydinge’, for which reason it was known in his
native Northumberland, he wrote, as ‘Chaf[e]weed’ and in Yorkshire as ‘cud-
weed’.^126 Though some authors^127 have argued that he must have been refer-
ring to heath cudweed (Gnaphalium sylvaticumLinnaeus), as he separately