Water-lilies, Buttercups and Poppies 75Kent)^53 for cleaning teeth. In Norfolk an infusion of the flowers has even
been used for treating sore eyes accompanying measles,^54 possibly out of mis-
take for the greater celandine at some time in the past.
A herb with parts used for suggestively similar-looking afflictions has
inevitably acquired a reputation as one of the classic examples of the Doc-
trine of Signatures. As in other cases, however, that may well be merely a post-
hoc rationalisation, for a decoction of the roots, applied with very hot com-
presses or as a mild ointment, has earned medical respect as an excellent
remedy for haemorrhoids in its own right.
Myosurus minimus Linnaeus
mousetail
southern half of Europe, North Africa, south-western Asia, North
America, Australasia
There is a solitary, seventeenth-century record of the use ofMyosurus min-
imus,a further acrid member of the buttercup family: ‘the country people in
some [unspecified] places of this land applied it not only to nose-bleeds, by
bruising the leaves and putting them up the nose, but also to staunch heavy-
bleeding wounds and heal them.’^55 The identification is borne out by a wood-
cut of the plant, which was formerly frequent on field margins subject to
winter flooding. It is on record north to Yorkshire in England.
Aquilegia vulgaris Linnaeus
columbine
southern and central Europe, North Africa, temperate Asia;
introduced into North America, Australasia
(Folk credentials questionable) Though Aquilegia vulgaris has plausibly been
claimed as indigenous in limestone thickets in Donegal,^56 it must surely have
been too rare in that county to have served as a wild source for the use of the
leaves there to poultice swellings, at least at the time of the one record for
that.^57 The plant has long been grown in cottage gardens and, once intro-
duced, reproduces very freely.
Thalictrum flavum Linnaeus
common meadow-rue
Europe, temperate Asia
The roots of all species of the genus Thalictrum,especially T.flavum,are
known to be powerful laxatives, earning the collective name ‘false rhubarb’. It
is the ‘tops’, however, which feature in the sole record of its use for this pur-
pose which has been encountered: in Buckinghamshire, boiled in ale.^58