it has been shredded, chewed and swallowed for constipation^75 and in Skye it
has been eaten to purify the blood.^76
Four unidentified seaweeds are
‘Seafog’, a cure for paralysis in Leitrim, used as a wash three times a day
either on its own or in combination with bladder wrack.^77
‘Red-fog’, found by Martin Martin in 1695 being boiled on Jura with blad-
der wrack and then inhaled to cure a stitch after a fever.^78
Luireach,a ‘filmy, skin-like form of seaweed’, baked strips of which bound
over the swelling were an ancient cure for goitre in the Highlands.^79
‘Sleek’, a long, thin hairy seaweed common on the coast of Fife and
employed there to poultice sprains, rheumatism, etc.^80 This is not a
recorded use of sloke (Porphyra spp.) and the name could belong to
some other alga.
Fungi
Fungi include a wide variety of organisms actually more closely related to
animals than to true plants. The fungi included here belong to the classes
Hymenomycetes (mushrooms), Gasteromycetes (puffballs) and Pyreno-
mycetes (powdery mildews and related fungi).
HYMENOMYCETES
Agaricus campestris Linnaeus ex Fries
field mushroom
northern and southern temperate zones and Caribbean; possibly
introduced into many parts of southern hemisphere
Though the word mushroom has doubtless always been applied loosely, for
most people it more particularly refers to Agaricus campestris,the one tradi-
tionally most sought after and collected for cooking. Unexpectedly, though,
only a single instance has been traced of what is fairly unambiguously this
being employed in the British Isles as a folk medicine—in Norfolk, where it
has been stewed in milk to soothe cancer of the throat.^81
Fomes fomentarius (Fries) Kickx
tinder fungus
circumboreal on birch, extending south to North Africa on beech
48 Laminaria