its leaves to improve their complexions, a use reflected in a folk song fragment
in Cornish collected in 1698.^166
Ireland has produced the only other record of a non-veterinary use: from
Antrim, of a belief that excessive ardour can be cooled with strawberry-leaf
tea^167 ;but the leaves for that may have come from a garden species and not
this native one.
Geum urbanum Linnaeus
herb-Bennet, wood avens
Europe, western Asia, North Africa, Australia; introduced into
North America, New Zealand
Though long a prominent member of the learned repertory, the widespread,
easily distinguished and readily accessible Geum urbanum,in places an inex-
tinguishable garden weed, was almost completely neglected in British and
Irish folk medicine, if the near-absence of records for it is a fair reflection of
the reality. For Britain there is just an isolated record from Bedfordshire of the
use of ‘green benet’, which has been identified as this species. The plant was
stewed with vinegar and, when cold, used to soothe sore eyes.^168
Assuming it is correctly identified as the ‘evans’ employed for kidney trou-
ble inCavan,^169 that is the only reliable record traced from Ireland, similarly.
The species does receive mention in another Irish source, as in use for chills,^170
but in that case the record is neither localised nor unambiguously a folk one.
Agrimonia eupatoria Linnaeus
agrimony
Europe, south-western Asia, North Africa, Macaronesia; introduced
into North America
Agrimonia procera Wa l l roth
fragrant agrimony
Europe
Though Agrimonia eupatoria is a common plant of the lowlands and its pop-
ularity as a medicine goes back at least to Galen and Pliny, it may resemble
house-leek (Sempervivum tectorum) in having been taken over for herbal use
in the British Isles from an intrusive tradition: its seeds have been detected in
Norse levels at York and it also features in the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. That
the records of its folk use come preponderantly from areas in the west par-
ticularly associated with Norse settlement is therefore suspicious.
Principally taken in the form of a tea, as a mild tonic and stimulant,Agri-
146 Fragaria vesca