212 Verbena officinalis
no claim to be considered indigenous in Ireland, it is not surprising that only
one other record of its use there has been traced: for allaying fever in Cavan.^59
Lamiaceae
Stachys officinalis (Linnaeus) Trevisan
Betonica officinalis Linnaeus
betony
Europe, Caucasus, Algeria; introduced into North America
Like vervain,Stachys officinalis,too,seems to have owed much of its popu-
larity as a medicinal herb to magico-religious associations underlying its use.
It was early identified with a plant known to the Romans as betonica and
described by Pliny the Elder as much in use by barbarian peoples as a nerve
tonic and a cure for drunkenness and hangovers; no less questionably, a herb
prominent in Anglo-Saxon lore was identified with it, too. To add to the con-
fusion, another popular herb, common speedwell (Ve ronica officinalis), was
known as betonica Pauli and, to judge from some of the purposes to which
that species has been put according to the folk records, may have sometimes
passed as betony as well. To the settlers in New England, betony on the other
hand was a species of lousewort,Pedicularis canadensis Linnaeus, while in
Ireland the name has been widely applied to bugle (Ajuga reptans).
Again like vervain, though,Stachys officinalisdoes possess some chemical
potency: the roots are purgative and emetic, the leaves are reputed to act as an
intoxicant, and alkaloids which the plant shares with yarrow give it the same
wound-healing properties as that. Nevertheless, those virtues may not have
been enough to warrant its being accorded such a high degree of reverence.
Nordothey make it safe to assume that where ‘betony’ is mentioned in the folk
recordsitisnecessarily this species that is intended nor, for that matter, that it
is the same plant in all cases. Those mentions all the same do show a reason-
able consistency—and except for one ambiguous Irish one^60 are all from the
southern half of Britain, the only part of the British Isles whereS. officinalisis
plentiful enough to have been able to meet any continuing herbal demand.
In only two counties (Wiltshire,^61 Sussex^62 ) have records been traced of
‘betony’ in use for wounds. So highly was it valued in Sussex for this pur-
pose, and even more for burns, that it gave rise to the saying there: ‘Sell your
coat and buy betony.’^63 Like other bitter ‘astringents’, though, the plant or
plants bearing that name have principally served as a tonic, an infusion of
the leaves being drunk as a tea. In Shropshire^64 that has been more specifically