304 Chamaemelum nobile
inhaling just the steam from that (Norfolk,^298 Glamorgan, Montgom-
eryshire^299 ), though for asthma in Norfolk^300 the plant was smoked and no
more than the dew shaken from the flowers was once reckoned enough in
South Wales to cure tuberculosis.^301
The flowers have also been employed in the form of an infusion to poul-
tice swellings and inflammation (Suffolk,^302 Orkney^303 ) or infused and
applied as a wash to sore or tired eyes (Norfolk^304 ); mixed with cream they
have served as an ointment forboils, too (Brecknockshire^305 ), though whether
that was the treatment for abscesses recorded for some part of Yorkshire^306 is
unclear. In Kent an infusion was drunk at one time as a regular morning
tonic,^307 while a recent discovery made in Suffolk is that the oil from the
flower-heads appears to mitigate psoriasis.^308
Ireland’s spread of records for the two main uses of the plant equals
Britain’s: it is known as a relaxant from ‘Ulster’,^309 Cavan,^310 Westmeath,^311
Co. Dublin^312 and Limerick,^313 as a painkiller from Cavan,^314 Co.Dublin,^315
Limerick^316 and Cork^317 and as a soporific from Wicklow.^318 While it has
been less favoured than in Britain for colds and the like, with records traced
for use for those from Cavan^319 and Carlow^320 only, it has been applied
markedly more widely in Ireland to swellings and inflammation (London-
derry,^321 Sligo,^322 Laois,^323 Co.Dublin,^324 Wicklow^325 ) or boils (Cavan,^326
Cork^327 ); boils, moreover, seem to have been poulticed with the plant’s
flower-heads whereas the ointment for those recorded from Wales has had a
parallel only as an application to whitlows on fingers in Westmeath,^328 so far
as has been traced. A jaundice cure reported from Cork,^329 however, involv-
ing boiling the plant in wine or porter and drinking the liquid over a period
of ten days, would appear to be uniquely Irish.
Anthemis arvensis Linnaeus
corn chamomile
Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa; introduced elsewhere
(Name confusion) Anthemis arvensis is specifically named in one printed
source as the chamomile on Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides used with other
herbs in poultices for promoting suppuration and drunk as an infusion for
strengthening the stomach. That the recorder describes it as a perennial and
flowering in late summer, however, shows that it must have been
Chamaemelum nobile,which happens to be anomalously widespread on that
island, as the legacy of introduction for a lawn.^330