known Highlands remedy for soothing stomach and bowel irritation.^153 The
plant’s very wide, if rather sparse, distribution throughout the British Isles
would make that feasible.
Platanthera chlorantha (Custer) Reichenbach
greater butterfly-orchid
Europe, Siberia
An ointment of a delicate green colour was at one time made in Dorset from
Platanthera chlorantha and applied to ulcers.^154
Dactylorhiza purpurella (Stephenson & T. A. Stephenson) Soó
northern marsh-orchid
north-western Europe
Dactylorhiza maculata (Linnaeus) Soó subsp.ericetorum
(E. F. Linton) P. F. Hunt & Summerhayes
heath spotted-orchid
north-western Europe
Orchis mascula (Linnaeus) Linnaeus
early-purple orchid
Europe, northern and western Asia, North Africa
A decoction of the testicle-like roots of purple-spiked species belonging to
Dactylorhiza or Orchis has enjoyed an age-old reputation as a love-philtre,
with an allegedly aphrodisiac effect on women. If there is a case for believing
that there was a Doctrine of Signatures, this would seem the most persuasive
example. The plant in Galloway credited with this power, known there as
dodjell reepan and as ‘rocket-juice’,^155 has been identified botanically as one or
more of the marsh-orchids^156 (of which D. purpurella is the most likely
there). Its counterpart in Wicklow, however,mogra-myra—apparently a cor-
ruption of an old Irish name—has been referred by a folklorist with botani-
cal expertise to O.mascula.^157 Probably because this latter is the species usu-
ally cited in books in this connection, at least one other Irish author^158 has
settled for the same identity; it has also been taken to be the orchid species
which was once highly valued in the Highlands for soothing, or providing a
protective lining to, the alimentary canal.^159 It is certainly sufficiently wide-
spread and locally plentiful in Scotland and Ireland for that assumption to be
made. On the other hand, an orchid used in the Highlands as a poultice for
‘drawing’ thorns or splinters has been identified as one of the spotted-
orchids, which in that geographical context is most likely to be D.maculata
334 Listera ovata