MEDICINAL PLANTS in Folk Tradition

(Darren Dugan) #1

ford^59 as a remedy for ridding the system of worms. It has also been valued in
Westmeath for kidney trouble.^60


Sedum anglicum Hudson
English stonecrop
Atlantic Europe, Morocco
A plant abounding in Colonsay, an island of the Inner Hebrides, and once there
pounded with groundsel to produce a mixture to reduce swellings ‘especially
on horses’ (but perhaps on people, too?) was botanically identified as Sedum
anglicum.^61 It perhaps stood in for house-leek (Sempervivum tectorum) there.


Saxifragaceae


Saxifraga ×urbium D. A. Webb
Londonpride
horticultural
In Carlow the often well-naturalised garden hybrid Saxifraga ×urbium was a
speciality cure of a local healer in 1928. Mixed with salt and rubbed on a rup-
ture, it gradually reduced the swelling, it was claimed.^62


Saxifraga granulata Linnaeus
meadow saxifrage
western and central Europe
(Folk credentials questionable) A plant bearing a Gaelic name identified in
some dictionaries with Saxifraga granulata has been used as a decoction for
kidney troubles in Westmeath.^63 The species was widely recommended in
the learned tradition for treating gravel and stones (allegedly because of the
resemblance of the root to those), but it is too great a rarity in Ireland, ac-
cepted as native only in the vicinity of Dublin, to make a very credible folk
herb there. The record more probably relates to parsley-piert (Aphanes arven-
sis), a much more widespread Irish plant with a folk reputation for relieving
similar ailments.


Chrysosplenium Linnaeus
golden-saxifrage
northern temperate zone
(Folk credentials questionable) According to an eighteenth-century physi-
cian in Nottinghamshire,^64 ‘an ointment made from this [Chrysosplenium
sp.] has been kept a secret among some glass-makers, who had experienced
its virtues in curing burns by hot metal.’ It is not clear whether this statement


  Currants, Succulents and Roses 139
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