174 Oxalis acetosella
records ofOxalis acetosellaneed to be sifted with more than ordinary care.
Luckily, in some cases ‘wood-sorrel’ is named specifically, while in others that
this species was doubtless the one intended can be deduced from the medic-
inal application mentioned. The possibility remains, however, that because of
the similarity of their vernacular names, some transferring of applications
between this andR. acetosahas taken place over the centuries in all innocence.
Even after excluding records likely to belong to other species, we are still
left with a suspicious-looking pattern made up of applications recorded
mostly from a single area only: to bruises just in Devon,^148 for instance. How-
ever, because the identity of the herbs recorded as employed in remedies in
the island of Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides was checked by a botanist
allegedly in all cases, it may be safe to accept that it was this plant that formed
a main ingredient in plasters applied to scrofula there.^149 But though several
authors have repeated the respective statements of the botanist John Light-
foot and his companion Thomas Pennant that a whey or tea of it was
employed to allay the heat of fevers in Arran,^150 those two did not set eyes on
the herb in question, which could therefore have been something else.
In Ireland ‘wood-sorrel’ explicitly has been recorded in use for diarrhoea
in Mayo^151 and Wicklow,^152 as a blood tonic in Cavan,^153 as a heart tonic in
Wicklow^154 and for countering palsy in Limerick.^155 Because clovers have
been brought to bear on cancers in other parts of Ireland, it is probably also
safe to assume that it was this plant, with its clover-like leaves, and not Rumex
acetosa that was eaten for stomach cancer in some unstated part of ‘Ulster’.^156
Geraniaceae
Geranium pratense Linnaeus
meadow crane’s-bill
northern and central Eurasia; introduced into North America,
New Zealand
(Folk credentials questionable) The astringency shared with other members
of the genus byGeranium pratensebrought great repute to a country herb
doctor in early-Victorian Berwickshire for its effectiveness against diarrhoea,
especially in teething children.^157 That this is the sole record traced of this
widespread and conspicuous English plant makes it likely that it belongs to the
learned tradition rather than to the oral folk one. Significantly, the species was
strongly recommended as a vulnerary in the 1542 herbal of Leonhard Fuchs.