216 Lamium purpureum
Essex as a treatment for piles^94 (and elsewhere in East Anglia it features as a
cure for certain diseases of poultry^95 ).
In Ireland, on the other hand, a decoction of the roots has been taken in
Meath to bring out the rash in cases of measles,^96 while in Kerry an infusion
has been drunk for headaches.^97 As similar uses are on record for betony
(S tachys officinalis), perhaps Lamium purpureum has served there merely as
a stand-in for that.
Marrubium vulgare Linnaeus
white horehound
Europe, western and central Asia, North Africa, Macaronesia;
introduced into North America, Australasia
Dubiously identified with herbs featured in Classical and Anglo-Saxon
herbals,Marrubium vulgare has long been favoured in both book and folk
medicine as a remedy for sore throats, hoarseness, colds, coughs of all kinds,
bronchitis and asthma, for which there are records from many parts of
Britain and particularly Ireland. However, the species is unknown as a macro-
fossil from any pre-Roman site in the British Isles (or indeed from any pre-
medieval one elsewhere in Europe) and it seems likely to have been a late
addition to the folk repertory.
‘Haryhound’ was widely made into a beer and drunk as a spring tonic in
East Anglia till the early twentieth century.^98 Inthe Fenland district of Cam-
bridgeshire, expectant mothers used to drink an especially strong mixture of
it with rue (Ruta graveolens,nowhere wild in the British Isles) if they wanted
to delayabirth.^99 In Cumbria, by contrast, it has been valued for nosebleeds.^100
That tonic of East Anglia has also been recorded from the opposite end of
the British Isles, in the Aran Islands.^101 In other, unspecified parts of Ireland
an infusion of the plant is said to have been a common remedy for earache or
a headache,^102 while in Cavan a preparation has had the reputation of clean-
ing out the valves of the heart, and a tea has been drunk for rheumatism.^103
Scutellaria galericulata Linnaeus
skullcap
Europe, northern and western Asia, Algeria, North America
(Folk credentials questionable) Prized in medieval herbalism for all disorders
of the nervous system, the only alleged folk records ofScutellaria galericulata
may in fact have come from that. Assertions that the plant continues ‘in gen-
eral use’ in the Eastern Counties^104 have been found to be supported by a sin-
glelocalised record only from Norfolk,^105 where it has been used for insomnia.