172 Frangula alnus
Frangula alnus Miller
alder buckthorn
Europe, north Asia, north-western Africa; introduced into
North America
(Folk credentials questionable) According to John Gerard, ‘divers countri-
men’ among his sixteenth-century contemporaries used an infusion of the
inner bark ofFrangula alnus as a purge and emetic.^135 But it is unclear
whether by those words he meant the folk whom elsewhere he carefully dis-
tinguishes as ‘the country people’, the followers of practices to which he
tended to refer only rarely and then merely on account of their quaintness.
Linaceae
Linum catharticum Linnaeus
fairy flax, purging flax
Europe, south-western Asia; introduced into North America
Evidence ofLinum catharticum,a well-known purge and emetic, has been
excavated from deposits in Britain as early as the Late Bronze Age, invariably
from sites associated with cultivation. This may or may not indicate medici-
nal use; there are, however, folk records from widely scattered and remote
parts of the British Isles to suggest that its history as a purge goes back a very
long way. In the Celtic-speaking regions it has also enjoyed a reputation as a
cure for menstrual irregularities: in the Highlands, where it bore a name to
that effect in Gaelic, this was apparently its principal use^136 ; it is also indi-
cated with greater or lesser explicitness from the Isle of Man^137 and Skye.^138
Its very power as a purge, evacuating ‘viscid and watery humours from the
most remote lodgments’, was why it commended itself to ‘the common peo-
ple’ for rheumatism as well, according to John Quincy, who nevertheless rated
it ‘only for very robust strong constitutions’.^139 There are more recent but,
regrettably, unlocalised British records for its use for that purpose, too.^140
Ireland supplies one further application: for urinary complaints in
Cavan.^141
Radiola linoides Roth
allseed
Europe, temperate Asia, Macaronesia, mountains of East Africa
(Name confusion suspected) A herb recorded in use in the Isle of Man for
ruptures has been referred to Radiola linoides.^142 However,it is too rare on
that island for the identification to be credible, and it is unlikely to have been
cultivated.