Herb Lore

This is the final installment of the herb lore. I hope that it has helped people in some way. This information was initially posted by me on the Stav Web Egroup. Both the herbal associations are posted as well as the associations for the various trees. The table below show the relationship between the runes, deities, herbs and trees. I will also point out before you start reading that the information that has been gathered is from many different sources and is not from the same source for each.

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Camomile

N.O.
Compositae

Habitat
There are a number of species of Chamomile spread over Europe, North Africa and the temperate region of Asia, but in Great Britain we have four growing wild: the sweet-scented, true Chamomile (Anthemis nobills); the Foetid Chamomile or Stinking Mayweed (A. cotula), which has what Gerard calls 'a naughty smell'; the Corn Chamomile (A. arvensis), which flowers rather earlier and is noticeable because its ray florets are empty and wholly for show and possess no sort of ovary or style; and fourthly, the Yellow Chamomile, with yellow instead of white rays, which is found sometimes on ballast heaps, but is not a true native

CHAMOMILE, COMMON
Anthemis nobills (LINN.)

Synonyms
Manzanilla (Spanish). Maythen (Saxon)

Part Used
Flowers and herb
Chamomile is one of the oldest favourites amongst garden herbs and its reputation as a medicinal plant shows little signs of abatement. The Egyptians reverenced it for its virtues, and from their belief in its power to cure ague, dedicated it to their gods. No plant was better known to the country folk of old, it having been grown for centuries in English gardens for its use as a common domestic medicine to such an extent that the old herbals agree that 'it is but lost time and labour to describe it.'

Description
The true or Common Chamomile (Anthemis nobills) is a low-growing plant, creeping or trailing, its tufts of leaves and flowers a foot high. The root is perennial, jointed and fibrous; the stems, hairy and freely branching, are covered with leaves which are divided into thread4ike segments, the fineness of which gives the whole plant a feathery appearance. The blooms appear in the later days of summer, from the end of July to September, and are borne solitary on long, erect stalks, drooping when in bud. With their outer fringe of white ray-florets and yellow centres, they are remarkably like the daisy. There are some eighteen white rays arranged round a conical centre, botanically known as the receptacle, on which the yellow, tubular florets are placed; the centre of the daisy is, however, considerably flatter than that of the Chamomile.
All the Chamomiles have a tiny, chaffy scale between each two florets, which is very minute and has to be carefully looked for, but which all the same is a vital characteristic of the genus Anthemis. The distinction between A. nobills and other species of Anthemis is the shape of these scales, which in A. nobills are short and blunt.

The fruit is small and dry, and as it forms, the hill of the receptacle gets more and more conical.
The whole plant is downy and greyish-green in colour. It prefers dry commons and sandy soil, and is found wild in Cornwall, Surrey, and many other parts of England.

Small flies are the chief insect-visitors to the flowers.

History
The fresh plant is strongly and agreeably aromatic, with a distinct scent of apples- a characteristic noted by the Greeks, on account of which they named it 'ground-apple'-kamai (on the ground) and melon (an apple)- the origin of the name Chamomile. The Spaniards call it 'Manzanilla,' which signifies 'a little apple,' and give the same name to one of their lightest sherries, flavoured with this plant.
When walked on, its strong, fragrant scent will often reveal its presence before it is seen. For this reason it was employed as one of the aromatic strewing herbs in the Middle Ages, and used often to be purposely planted in green walks in gardens. Indeed, walking over the plant seems specially beneficial to it.

'Like a camomile bed-The more it is trodden The more it will spread,'

The aromatic fragrance gives no hint of its bitterness of taste.

The Chamomile used in olden days to be looked upon as the 'Plant's Physician,' and it has been stated that nothing contributes so much to the health of a garden as a number of Chamomile herbs dispersed about it, and that if another plant is drooping and sickly, in nine cases out of ten, it will recover if you place a herb of Chamomile near it.

Parts Used Medicinally
The whole plant is odoriferous and of value, but the quality is chiefly centred in the flower-heads or capitula, the part employed medicinally, the herb itself being used in the manufacture of herb beers.

Both single and double flowers are used in medicine. It is considered that the curative properties of the single, wild Chamomile are the more powerful, as the chief medical virtue of the plant lies in the central disk of yellow florets, and in the cultivated double form the white florets of the ray are multiplied, while the yellow centre diminishes. The powerful alkali contained to so much greater extent in the single flowers is, however, liable to destroy the coating of the stomach and bowels, and it is doubtless for this reason that the British Pharmacopoeia directs that the 'official' dried Chamomile flowers shall be those of the double, cultivated variety.

The double-flowered form was already well known in the sixteenth century. It was introduced into Germany from Spain about the close of the Middle Ages.

Chamomile was largely cultivated before the war in Belgium, France and Saxony and also in England, chiefly in the famous herb-growing district of Mitcham. English flower-heads are considered the most valuable for distillation of the oil, and during the war the price of English and foreign Chamomile reached an exorbitant figure.

The 'Scotch Chamomile' of commerce is the Single or Wild Chamomile, the yellow tubular florets in the centre of the head being surrounded by a variable number of white, ligulate or strap-shaped ray florets. The 'English Chamomile' is the double form, with all or nearly all the florets white and ligulate. In both forms the disk or receptacle is solid and conical, densely covered with chaffy scales, and both varieties, but especially the single, have a strong aromatic odour and a very bitter taste.

Cultivation and Preparation for Market
Chamomile requires a sunny situation. The single variety, being the wild type, flourishes in a rather dry, sandy soil, the conditions of its natural habits on wild, open common-land, but the double-flowered Chamomile needs a richer soil and gives the heaviest crop of blooms in moist, stiffish black loam.

Propagation may be effected by seed, sown thinly in May in the open and transplanting when the seedlings are large enough to permanent quarters, but this is not to be recommended, as it gives a large proportion of single-flowered plants, which, as stated above, do not now rank for pharmaceutical purposes as high as the double-flowered variety, though formerly they were considered more valuable.
The usual manner of increasing stock to ensure the double-flowers is from 'sets,' or runners of the old plants. Each plant normally produces from twelve to fourteen sets, but may sometimes give as many as from twenty-five to fifty. The old plants are divided up into their sets in March and a new plantation formed in well-manured soil, in rows 2 1/2 feet apart, with a distance of 18 inches between the plants. Tread the small plants in firmly, it will not hurt them, but make them root better. Keep them clean during the summer by hand-weeding, as hoeing is apt to destroy such little plants. They will require no further attention till the flowers are expanded and the somewhat tedious process of picking commences.

In autumn, the sets may be more readily rooted by placing a ring of good light soil about 2 or 3 inches from the centre of the old plant and pressing it down slightly.

Chemical Constituents
The active principles are a volatile oil, of a pale blue colour (becoming yellow by keeping), a little Anthemic acid (the bitter principle), tannic acid and a glucoside.

The volatile oil is yielded by distillation, but is lost in the preparation of the extract. Boiling also dissipates the oil.

Medicinal Action and Uses
Tonic, stomachic, anodyne and antispasmodic. The official preparations are a decoction, an infusion, the extract and the oil.
The infusion, made from 1 oz. of the flowers to 1 pint of boiling water and taken in doses of a tablespoonful to a wineglass, known popularly as Chamomile Tea, is an old-fashioned but extremely efficacious remedy for hysterical and nervous affections in women and is used also as an emmenagogue. It has a wonderfully soothing, sedative and absolutely harmless effect. It is considered a preventive and the sole certain remedy for nightmare. It will cut short an attack of delirium tremens in the early stage. It has sometimes been employed in intermittent fevers.
Chamomile Tea should in all cases be prepared in a covered vessel, in order to prevent the escape of steam, as the medicinal value of the flowers is to a considerable extent impaired by any evaporation, and the infusion should be allowed to stand on the flowers for 10 minutes at least before straining off.

Combined with ginger and alkalies, the cold infusion (made with 1/2 oz. of flowers to 1 pint of water) proves an excellent stomachic in cases of ordinary indigestion, such as flatulent colic, heartburn, loss of appetite, sluggish state of the intestinal canal, and also in gout and periodic headache, and is an appetizing tonic, especially for aged persons, taken an hour or more before a principal meal. A strong, warm infusion is a useful emetic. A concentrated infusion, made eight times as strong as the ordinary infusion, is made from the powdered flowers with oil of chamomile and alcohol and given as a stomachic in doses of 1/2 to 2 drachms, three times daily.

Chamomile flowers are recommended as a tonic in dropsical complaints for their diuretic and tonic properties, and are also combined with diaphoretics and other stimulants with advantage.

An official tincture is employed to correct summer diarrhea in children. Charonmile is used with purgatives to prevent griping, carminative pills being made from the essential essence of the flowers. The extract, in doses of 10 to 15 grains, combined with myrrh and preparations of iron, also affords a powerful and convenient tonic in the form of a pill. The fluid extract of flowers is taken in doses of from 1/2 to 1 drachm; the oil, B.P. dose, 1/2 to 3 drops.

Apart from their employment internally, Chamomile flowers are also extensively used by themselves, or combined with an equal quantity of crushed poppy-heads, as a poultice and fomentation for external swelling, inflammatory pain or congested neuralgia, and will relieve where other remedies have failed, proving invaluable for reducing swellings of the face caused through ab-scesses. Bags may be loosely stuffed with flowers and steeped well in boiling water before being applied as a fomentation. The antiseptic powers of Chamomile are stated to be 120 times stronger than sea-water. A decoction of Chamomile flowers and poppy-heads is used hot as fomentation to abscesses -10 parts of Chamomile flowers to 5 of poppy capsules, to 100 of distilled water.

The whole herb is used chiefly for making herb beers, but also for a lotion, for external application in toothache, earache, neuralgia, etc. One ounce of the dried herb is infused in 1 pint of boiling water and allowed to cool. The herb has also been employed in hot fomentations in cases of local and intestinal inflammation.

Culpepper gives a long list of complaints for which Chamomile is 'profitable,' from agues and sprains to jaundice and dropsy, stating that 'the flowers boiled in lye are good to wash the head,' and tells us that bathing with a decoction of Chamomile removes weariness and eases pain to whatever part of the body it is employed. Parkinson, in his Earthly Paradise (1656), writes:
'Camomil is put to divers and sundry users, both for pleasure and profit, both for the sick and the sound, in bathing to comfort and strengthen the sound and to ease pains in the diseased.'

Turner says:
'It hath floures wonderfully shynynge yellow and resemblynge the appell of an eye ... the herbe may be called in English, golden floure. It will restore a man to hys color shortly yf a man after the longe use of the bathe drynke of it after he is come forthe oute of the bathe. This herbe is scarce in Germany but in England it is so plenteous that it groweth not only in gardynes but also VIII mile above London, it groweth in the wylde felde, in Rychmonde grene, in Brant-furde grene .... Thys herbe was consecrated by the wyse men of Egypt unto the Sonne and was rekened to be the only remedy of all agues.'

The dried flowers of A. nobills are used for blond dyeing, and a variety of Chamomile known as Lemon Chamomile yields a very fine essential oil.

CHAMOMILE, GERMAN
Matricaria chamomilla (LINN.)
N.O. Compositae

Synonyms
Wild Chamomile

Part Used
Flowers
The German Charonmile, sometimes called the Wild Chamomile, has flower-heads about 3/4 inch broad with about fifteen white, strap-shaped, reflexed ray florets and numerous tubular yellow, perfect florets. It is frequent in cornfields and so remarkably like the Corn
Chamomile (Anthemis arvensis) that it is often difficult to distinguish it from that plant, but it is not ranked among the true Chamomiles by botanists because it does not possess the little chaffy scales or bracts between its florets; also the conical receptacle, or disk, on which the florets are arranged is hollow, not solid, like that of the Corn Chamomile. It may also be distinguished from A. cotula and Matricaria inodora, the Mayweeds, by the lapping-over scales of its involucre surrounding the base of the flower-head not being chaffy at the margin, as in those species. It has a strong smell, somewhat like that of the official Common Chamomile (A. nobilis), but less aromatic, whereas the Corn Chamomile which it so closely resembles is scentless.

Constituents
The flowers of the German
Chamomile, though aromatic, have a very bitter taste. They contain a volatile oil, a bitter extractive and little tannic acid.

Medicinal Action and Uses
Carminative, sedative and tonic. The infusion of 1/2 oz. of the dried flowers to 1 pint of boiling water may be given freely in teaspoonful doses to children, for whose ailments it is an excellent remedy. It acts as a nerve sedative and also as a tonic upon the gastro-intestinal canal. It proves useful during dentition in cases of earache, neuralgic pain, stomach disorders and infantile convulsions. The flowers may also be used externally as a fomentation.
Preparations
Fluid extract: dose, 1/4 to 1 drachm.

CHAMOMILE, STINKING
Anthemis cotula (LINN.)
N.O. Compositae

Synonyms
Mayweed. Maruta Cotula. Dog Chamomile. Maruta Feetida. Dog-Fennel

Part Used
Whole herb
Stinking Chamomile or Stinking May-weed (Anthemis cotula), an annual, common in waste places, resembles the true Chamomile, having large solitary flowers on erect stems, with conical, solid receptacles, but the white rioters have no membraneous scales at their base. It is distinguished from the other Chamomiles and closely allied genera by its foetid odour, which Gerard calls 'a naughty smell.' This disagreeable smell, and the resemblance to fennel of its much-cut leaves, gains it its other name of 'Dog's Fennel.' The whole plant, not only the flowers, has this intense odour and is penetrated by an acrid juice that often will blister the hand which gathers it. Writers on toxicology have classed this plant amongst the vegetable poisons.

Medicinal Action and Uses
Tonic, antispasmodic, emmenagogue and emetic. The whole herb is used.

Like true Chamomile, a strong decoction will produce vomiting and sweating. In America it is used in country districts as a sudorific in colds and chronic rheumatism. The infusion made from 1 oz. of the dried herb in a pint of boiling water and taken warm in wineglassful doses has been used with success in sick headache and in convalescence from fevers. It was formerly used in scrofula and hysteria and externally in fomentations. A weaker infusion taken to a moderate extent acts as an emetic.

Magical uses of Chamomile

Chamomile can be used to attract money, and a handwash of the infusion is sometimes used by gamblers to ensure winnings.

It is used in sleep and meditation incenses, and the infusion is also added to the bath to attract love.

It is also a purifactory and protective herb. When sprinkled around the property, it removes curses and spells cast against you.

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Oak

Quercus robur - Pedunculate Oak, Common Oak, English Oak. Irish Dair.

Family - Fagaceae

Description
Large deciduous tree and probably our commonest tree. Height 30 - 40 m. Age 1000 year or more.

Habitat
Basic fertile soils ph 4.5 - 7.5 including heavy soils. Mature trees tolerate flooding even by sea-water.
Usually found in mixed woodland.

Natural Distribution
Throughout Britain and Ireland and most of Western Europe and Asia Minor.

The Tree Year

Propagation and growth
See Quercus Petraea. Approx 110 - 450 seeds per kg.

Timber
Pale brown strong wood. More susceptible to epicormic growth.

Uses of Wood
Wines and spirits matured in English Oak casks.

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Comfery

Symphytum officinale (LINN.)
N.O. Boraginaceae

Synonyms
Common Comfrey. Knitbone. Knitback. Consound. Blackwort. Bruisewort. Slippery Root. Boneset. Yalluc (Saxon). Gum Plant. Consolida. Ass Ear

Part Used
Root, leaves

Habitat
A native of Europe and temperate Asia; is common throughout England on the banks of rivers and ditches, and in watery places generally
This well-known showy plant is a member of the Borage and Forget-me-not tribe, Boraginaceae.
The plant is erect in habit and rough and hairy all over. There is a branched rootstock, the roots are fibrous and fleshy, spindle-shaped, an inch or less in diameter and up to a foot long, smooth, blackish externally, and internally white, fleshy and juicy.

Description
The leafy stem, 2 to 3 feet high, is stout, angular and hollow, broadly winged at the top and covered with bristly hairs. The lower, radical leaves are very large, up to 10 inches long, ovate in shape and covered with rough hairs which promote itching when touched. The stem-leaves are decurrent, i.e. a portion of them runs down the stem, the body of the leaf being continued beyond its base and point of attachment with the stem. They decrease in size the higher they grow up the stem, which is much branched above and terminated by one-sided clusters of drooping flowers, either creamy yellow, or purple, growing on short stalks. These racemes of flowers are given off in pairs, and are what is known as scor-poid in form, the curve they always assume suggesting, as the word implies, the curve of a scorpion's tail, the flowers being all placed on one side of the stem, gradually tapering from the fully-expanded blossom to the final and almost imperceptible bud at the extremity of the curve, as in the Forget-me-Not. The corollas are bell-shaped, the calyx deeply five-cleft, narrow to lance-shaped, spreading, more downy in the purple-flowered type. The fruit consists of four shining nutlets, perforated at the base, and adhering to the receptacle by their base. Comfrey is in bloom throughout the greater part of the summer, the first flowers opening at the end of April or early May.

The creamy yellow-flowered form is stated by Hooker to be Symphytum officinale proper, and the purple flowered he considered a variety and named it S. officinale, var patens. The botanist Sibthorpe makes a definite species of it under the name patens.

There is another species, S. tuberosum, found in wet places from North Wales, Stafford and Lincoln northwards into Scotland, and most common in the south of Scotland, though absent from Ireland.

In this form, the stem is scarcely branched and but slightly winged, the bases of the leaves being hardly at all continued down the stem. Though also covered with hairs, the latter are not so bristly. The root-stock is short and horizontal, with slender root fibres. This is a much smaller plant, the stem rarely more than a foot high, rather slender and leafy. The lower radical leaves are much as in S. officinale in form, but with longer footstalks. The flowers, creamy-yellow in colour, though about the same size as those of S. officinale, are in much smaller masses.
The Common Comfrey is abundantly met with in England, but is rare in Scotland; the tuberous Comfrey is commonly found in Scotland, but is seldom met with in England, the northern counties of England and North Wales being its extreme southern limit, so that except in the narrow zone of country common to both, there will be no possibility of mistaking the one species for the other.

The variety of S. officinale, with a purplish flower, is more common in many parts of the Continent than in England. The purple and yellowish flowers are not found mixed where the plants grow wild: the difference in colour is permanent in plants raised from seed.
[In the water-meadows which form sucn a well-known feature in South Wilts, especially in the valleys round about Salisbury, Common Comfrey is abundant, and the flowers vary in colour from creamy-white to a pretty rose-pink; while the purple sort is the commonest. - Note by a Wiltshire writer.]

A variety with flowers of a rich blue colour, S. Asperimum, Prickly Comfrey, was introduced into this country from the Caucasus in 1811 as a fodder plant. This species is the largest of the genus, rising to 5 feet and more, with prickly stems and bold foliage, the leaves very large and oval, the hairs on them having bulbous bases. It was extensively recommended as a green food for most animals, it being claimed for it that it contained a considerable amount of flesh-form-ing substances, and was, moreover, both preventative and curative of foot and mouth disease in cattle. It has the advantage of producing large crops, two at least in a season, if cut before the flowers quite expand, and in favourable circumstances even more, so that 40 to 50 tons of green food per acre might be reckoned on. At the time of its introduction, a number of farmers and small-holders planted it. It was found, however, that though horses, cattle and pigs would eat it, they never took kindly to it as a forage. Horses in time of scarcity will eat it in small quantities in the green state, though do not care for it dried. It is a useful food in the green state for pigs of all ages, but it takes a little time for them to get used to it. Its feeding value, however, has been proved to be not so very much more than that of grass, and though it grows luxuriantly in all moist situations, where the soil is pretty good, it is not adapted for either dry or poor land.

The following is the result of an analysis of S. Asperimum, by Professor Voelcker:
LEAVES STEM
In Natural Calculated In Natural Calculated
State Dry State Dry
Water 88.400 -- 94.74 --
Flesh-forming substances: 2.712 23.37 .69 13.06
Heat and fat-producting matters 6.898 59.49 3.81 72.42
Inorganic matters (ash) 1.990 17.14 .76 14.45
100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

On comparison the above figures will show this plant to be almost equal to some of our more important green-food crops; and certainly if we take into consideration the quantity of its produce, there are few plants capable of yielding so much green food as the Comfrey. Dr. Voelcker says that 'the amount of flesh-forming substances is considerable. The juice of this plant contains much gum and mucilage, and little sugar.'
Formerly country people cultivated Com-frey in their gardens for its virtue in wound healing, and the many local names of the plant testify to its long reputation as a vulner-ary herb - in the Middle Ages it was a famous remedy for broken bones. The very name, Comfrey, is a corruption of con firma, in allusion to the uniting of bones it was thought to effect, and the botanical name, Symphy-tum, is derived from the Greek symphyo (to unite).

Cultivation
Comfrey thrives in almost any soil or situation, but does best under the shade of trees.

Propagation may be effected either by seed or by division of roots in the autumn: the roots are very brittle, and the least bit of root will start growing afresh. They should be planted about 21/2 feet apart each way, and will need no further care except to keep them clear from weeds.

As a green crop they will yield largely if well-rotted manure be dug between the rows when dressing for winter.

As an ornamental plant, Comfrey is often introduced into gardens, from which it is very difficult to eradicate it when it has once established itself, a new plant arising from any severed portion of the root.

Parts Used Medicinally
The root and leaves, generally collected from wild plants. Comfrey leaves are sometimes found as an adulteration to Foxglove leaves, which they somewhat resemble, but may be distinguished by the smaller veins not extending into the wings of the leaf-stalk, and by having on their surface isolated stiff hairs. They are also more lanceolate than Foxglove leaves.

Constituents
The chief and most important constituent of Comfrey root is mucilage, which it contains in great abundance, more even than Marshmallow. It also contains from 0.6 to 0.8 per cent. of Allantoin and a little tannin. Starch is present in a very small amount.

Medicinal Action and Uses
Demulcent, mildly astringent and expectorant. As the plant abounds in mucilage, it is frequently given whenever a mucilaginous medicine is required and has been used like Marshmallow for intestinal troubles. It is very similar in its emollient action to Marshmallow, but in many cases is even preferred to it and is an ingredient in a large number of herbal preparations. It forms a gentle remedy in cases of diarrhoea and dysentery. A decoction is made by boiling 1/2 to 1 oz. of crushed root in 1 quart of water or milk, which is taken in wineglassful doses, frequently.

For its demulcent action it has long been employed domestically in lung troubles and also for quinsy and whooping-cough. The root is more effectual than the leaves and is the part usually used in cases of coughs. It is highly esteemed for all pulmonary complaints, consumption and bleeding of the lungs. A strong decoction, or tea, is recommended in cases of internal haemorrhage, whether from the lungs, stomach, bowels or from bleeding piles- to be taken every two hours till the haemorrhage ceases, in severe cases, a teaspoonful of Witch Hazel extract being added to the Comfrey root tea.

A modern medicinal tincture, employed by homoeopaths, is made from the root with spirits of wine, 10 drops in a tablespoonful of water being administered several times a day.

Comfrey leaves are of much value as an external remedy, both in the form of fomentations, for sprains, swellings and bruises, and as a poultice, to severe cuts, to promote suppuration of boils and abscesses, and gan-grenousandill-conditionedulcers. The whole plant, beaten to a cataplasm and applied hot as a poultice, has always been deemed excellent for soothing pain in any tender, inflamed or suppurating part. It was formerly applied to raw, indolent ulcers as a glutinous astringent. It is useful in any kind of inflammatory swelling.

Internally, the leaves are taken in the form of an infusion, 1 oz. of the leaves to 1 pint of boiling water. Fluid extract: dose, 1/2 to 2 drachms.

The reputation of Comfrey as a vulnerary has been considered due partly to the fact of its reducing the swollen parts in the immediate neighbourhood of fractures, causing union to take place with greater facility. Gerard affirmed: 'A salve concocted from the fresh herb will certainly tend to promote the healing of bruised and broken parts.' Surgeons have declared that the powdered root, if dissolved in water to a mucilage, is far from contemptible for bleedings and fractures, whilst it hastens the callus of bones under repair. Its virtues as a vulnerary are now attributed to the Allantoin it contains. According to Macalister (British Medical Journal, Jan. 6, 1912), Allantoin in aqueous solution in strengths of 0.3 per cent. has a powerful action in strengthening epithelial formations, and is a valuable remedy not only in external ulceration, but also in ulcers of the stomach and duodenum. Comfrey Root is used as a source of this cell prolifer-ant Allantoin, employed in the dealing of chronic wounds, burns, ulcers, etc., though Allantoin is also made artificially.

The following is from the Chentist and Druggist of August 13, 1921:
'Allantoin is a fresh instance of the good judgment of our rustics, especially of old times, with regard to the virtues of plants. The great Comfrey or consound, though it was official with us down to the middle of the eighteenth century, never had a very prominent place in professional practice; but our herbalists were loud in its praise and the country culler of simples held it almost infallible as a remedy for both external and internal wounds, bruises, and ulcers, for phlegm, for spitting of blood, ruptures, haemorrhoids, etc. For ulcers of the stomach and liver especially, the root (the part used) was regarded as of sovereign virtue. It is precisely for such complaints as these that Allantoin, obtained from the rhizome of the plant, is now prescribed. One old Syrupus de Symphyto was a rather complicated preparation. Gerard has a better formula, also a compound, which he highly recommends for ulcers of the lungs. The old Edinburgh formula is the simplest and probably the best: Fresh Comfrey leaves and fresh plantain leaves, of each lb.ss.; bruise them and well squeeze out the juice; add to the dregs spring water lb.ij.; boil to half, and mix the strained liquor with the expressed juice; add an equal quantity of white sugar and boil to a syrup.'

Culpepper says:
'The great Comfrey ("great" to distinguish it from the "Middle Comfrey"-another name for the Bugle) restrains spitting of blood. The root boiled in water or wine and the decoction drank, heals inward hurts, bruises, wounds and ulcers of the lungs, and causes the phlegm that oppresses him to be easily spit forth .... A syrup made thereof is very effectual in inward hurts, and the distilled water for the same purpose also, and for outward wounds or sores in the fleshy or sinewy parts of the body, and to abate the fits of agues and to allay the sharpness of humours. A decoction of the leaves is good for those purposes, but not so effectual as the roots. The roots being outwardly applied cure fresh wounds or cuts immediately, being bruised and laid thereto; and is specially good for ruptures and broken bones, so powerful to consolidate and knit together that if they be boiled with dissevered pieces of flesh in a pot, it will join them together again.'

He goes on to describe its curative effect on haemorrhoids and continues:
'The roots of Comfrey taken fresh, beaten small and spread upon leather and laid upon any place troubled with the gout presently gives ease: and applied in the same manner it eases pained joints and tends to heal running ulcers, gangrenes, mortifications, for which it hath by often experience been found helpful.'

The young leaves form a good green vegetable, and are not infrequently eaten by country people. When fully grown they become, however, coarse and unpleasant in taste. They have been used to flavour cakes and other food.
In some parts of Ireland, Comfrey is eaten as a cure for defective circulation and poverty of blood, being regarded as a perfectly safe and harmless remedy.

Comfrey roots, together with Chichory and Dandelion roots, are used to make a well-known vegetation 'Coffee,' that tastes practically the same as ordinary coffee, with none of its injurious effects.

A strong decoction has been used on the Continent for tanning leather, and in Angora a sort of glue is got from the common Com-frey, which is used for spinning the famous fleeces of that country.

In that inimitable little book by Russell George Alexander, called A .Plain Plantain, in which he quotes from an old MS. inscribed 'Madam Susanna Avery, Her Book, May ye 12th Anno Domini 1688,' we find the following reference to Comfrey: 'From the French conserve, Latin conserva - healing: conserves - to boil together; to heal. A Wound Herb.' 'The roots,' says a sixteenth-century writer, 'heal all inwarde woundes and burstings,' and Baker (Jewell of Health, 1567) says: 'The water of the Greater Com-ferie druncke helpeth such as are bursten, and that have broken the bone of the legge.' In cookery, the leaves gathered young may be used as a substitute for Spinach; the young shoots have been eaten after blanching by forcing them to grow through heaps of earth.

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Linden

Tilia cordata - Small leaved Lime, Linden

Family - Tiliaceae

Description
Large deciduous tree believed at one time to have been dominant tree in English forests.
Height 38 m. Age 500 years

Habitat
Woods and cliffs except limestone. Sometimes forms pure stands but usually with Ash, Hawthorn, Field Maple, Birch, Oak, Wild Cherry and Wych Elm. Moderately tolerant of shade. Coppices strongly.

Natural Distribution
England and Wales, and Southern Scotland not Ireland. Also most of Western Europe except Southern Spain, Italy and Greece.

The Tree Year

Propagation and Growth
Grown from seed. Deeply dormant treat as Acer campestre except start treatment 10 months before planting. Approximately 20,000 seeds per kg but germination variable. Also grown from cuttings.

Timber
Relatively soft white or yellow wood, valuable timber. Does not change dimensions or warp once seasoned.

Uses of Wood
Good for carving and making small articles and model making. Bark has strong fibre (bast) and once used for ropes.

Food and Drink
Sugar can be made from sap and beekeepers regard as a good source of nectar. On continent flowers dried to make tea.

Related Species
Common Lime is a hybrid of Tilia cordata and T. platyphyllos

Tilia platyphyllos - Large Leaved Lime, Linden, Broad Leaved Lime

Family - Tiliaceae

Description
Large deciduous tree rare and restricted in habitats.
Height 32m

Habitat
Woods.

Natural Distribution
Woods by River Wye, Teme and Severn and in South Yorkshire. Not native to Ireland but throughout France, Central Europe and Asia Minor.

The Tree Year

Propagation and Growth
Deeply dormant seed. Treat as Acer campestre but start treatment approx 12 months before planting.
Approx 6000 seeds per kg.

Timber
See Tilia cordata.

Uses of Wood
See Tilia cordata.

Food and Drink
See Tilia cordata.

Related Species
See Tilia cordata.

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Flax

Linum usitatissimum (LINN.)
N.O. Linaceae

Synonyms
Linseed

Part Used
Seed

History
Flax is one of the English-grown medicinal herbs, the products of which are included in the British Pharmacopoeia, its seed known as Linseed, being much employed in medicine.

Its cultivation reaches back to the remotest periods of history, Flax seeds as well as the woven cloth having been found in Egyptian tombs. It has been cultivated in all temperate and tropical regions for so many centuries that its geographical origin cannot be identified, for it readily escapes from cultivation and is found in a semi-wild condition in all the countries where it is grown.

The 'fine linen' mentioned in the Bible has been satisfactorily proved to have been spun from Flax; it was the plant to which the plague of hail proved so disastrous (Exodus ix. 31), Joseph was arrayed in this product (Genesis xii. 42), and it also furnished the garments of the Jewish High-Priests (Exodus xxviii.) as well as the curtains of the Tabernacle (Exodus xxvi. 1). We learn that the knowledge of spinning this linen was known to the Canaanites (see Joshua ii. 6), and in New Testament times it formed the clothing of the Saviour in the tomb where Joseph of Arimathaea laid Him.

It was used for cord and sailcloth ('white sails' are mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey), and it was used for lamp-wicks (Isaiah xlii. 3).
The seed-vessels with their five-celled capsules are referred to in the Bible as 'bolls,' and the expression 'the flax was bolled' (Exodus ix. 31) means that it had arrived at a state of maturity. When the bolls are ripe, the Flax is pulled and tied in bundles, and in order to assist the separation of the fibre from the stalks, the bundles are placed in water for several weeks, and then spread out to dry.

This custom is alluded to in Joshua ii. 6. Pliny writes:
'What department is there to be found of active life in which flax is not employed? And in what production of the Earth are there greater marvels to us than in this? To think that here is a plant which brings Egypt to close proximity to Italy! - so much so, in fact, that Galerius and Balbillus, both of them prefects of Egypt, made the passage to Alexandria from the Straits of Sicily, the one in six days, the other in five! . . . What audacity in man! What criminal perverseness! Thus to sow a thing in the ground for the purpose of catching the winds and tempests; it being not enough for him, forsooth, to be borne upon the waves alone!'

Bartholomew, the mediaeval herbalist, refers to the making of linen from the soaking of Flax in water till it is dried and turned in the sun and then bound in 'praty bundels' and afterwards 'knockyd, beten and brayd and carflyd, rodded and gnodded; ribbyd and heklyd, and at the last sponne'; of the bleaching, and finally of its many uses for making clothing, and for sails, and fish-nets, and thread and ropes, and strings ('for bows'), and measuring lines, and sheets ('to reste in'), and 'sackes and bagges, and purses (to put and to kepe thynges in').

Of the making of tow 'uneven and full of knobs' used for stuffing into the cracks in ships, and 'for bonds and byndynges and matches for candelles, for it is full drye and taketh sone lyre and brenneth.' And so, he concludes somewhat breathlessly, 'none herbe is so needfull to so many dyurrse uses to mankynde as is the flexe.'

Darwin studied several species of Linum, and found that some like the primrose had flowers with two forms of stamens and pistil. His object was to test the relative degrees of fertility of the long and short-styled pistils. L. perenne, for instance, is dimorphic:
'Of the flowers on the long-styled plants he found that twelve were fertilized with their own form pollen, but from a different plant. A seed capsule was only set when pollinated from anthers of the same height as the stigmas.'

So Darwin concluded:
'We have the clearest evidence that the stigmas of each form require for full fertility that pollen from the stamens of a corresponding height, belonging to the opposite form, should be brought to them.' (Forms of Flowers, p. 92.)
This plant is visited by bees, who perform the function Darwin describes.

The Flax is a graceful little plant with turquoise blue blossoms, a tall, erect annual, 1 to 2 feet high, the stems usually solitary, quite smooth, with alternate, linear, sessile leaves, 3/4 to 1 inch long.

Many traditions are associated with this useful plant. Flax flowers were believed in the Middle Ages to be a protection against sorcery. The Bohemians have a belief that if seven-yea-old children dance among Flax, they will become beautiful, and the whole plant was supposed to be under the protection of the goddess Hulda, who, in Teuton mythology, was held to have first taught mortals the art of growing Flax, of spinning, and of weaving it.

Cultivation and Preparation for Market
Linseed requires ground as rich as for wheat, and if cultivated for seed is not of much use for Flax.

Its cultivation in this country could only pay on a large scale. The very exhausting nature of the crop has prevented its extensive cultivation in England, and the area under cultivation has declined in consequence. This peculiarity was well known to the Ancients, and Pliny asserted that it scorched the ground. Its culture requires care and suitable soil to secure a good crop. It has been grown in large quantities in the alluvial soils of Lincolnshire and in the eastern counties, and flourishes well in Ireland. It succeeds best in deep, moist loams such as contain a large proportion of vegetable matter, in good condition, firm, not loose. Strong clays do not answer well, nor poor soils, nor such as are of a gravelly or sandy nature, nor should the soil be freshly manured.

It is best treated as a farm crop. Being quickly grown and quickly harvested, it can be grown after a winter root crop, being over and reaped in time to secure a catch crop for the following season. The seed, which must be kept dry, as damp injures it, is sown in March or April, in drills, 70 lb. to the acre, on land carefully prepared and freed from weeds by ploughing. The crop itself must be hand-weeded, or the roots, being surface rooted, will be injured. It should be reaped in August, before the seed is fully ripe. The fibres of the plant, when grown for Flax, are found to be softer and stronger when the blossom has just fallen and the stalk begins to turn yellow before the leaves fall, than if left standing till the seeds are quite mature. The seeds, however, will ripen after the plant is gathered, if they be allowed to remain on the plant for a time. The Dutch avail themselves of this fact with regard to their Flax crops. After pulling the plants they stack them. The seeds by this means ripen, while the fibres are collected at the most favourable period of their growth. They thus obtain both of the valuable products of the plant.

Parts Used Medicinally
The fruit is a globular capsule, about the size of a small pea, containing in separate cells ten seeds, which are brown (white within), oval-oblong and flattened, pointed at one end, shining and polished on the surface, 1\6 to 1/4 inch long. They are inodorous except when powdered, but the taste is mucilaginous and slightly unpleasant.

Linseed varies much in size and tint- a yellowish variety occurring in India. Holland, Russia, the United States, Canada, the Argentine and India furnish the principal supplies. The Russian seed or Dutch-grown of Russian origin, though small, is preferred for Flax-growing, as it is hardier than the large southern seed from the Mediterranean and India. For medicinal purposes, English and Dutch seeds are preferred, on account of their freedom from weed-seeds and dirt. If containing more than 4 per cent. of weed-seeds, linseed may be said to be adulterated. Of English and Dutch seeds about twelve weigh 1 grain, but some of the Indian and Mediterranean varieties are twice as large and heavy.

Constituents
The envelope or testa of the seed contains about 15 per cent. of mucilage. The seeds themselves contain in the cotyledons and endosperm from 30 to 40 per cent. of a fixed oil, of a light yellow colour, and about 25 per cent. proteids, together with wax, resin, sugar, phosphates, acetic acid, and a small quantity of the glucoside Linamarin. On incineration, linseed should not yield more than 5 per cent. of ash.

The oil is obtained by expression, with little or no heat. The cake which remains after expressing the oil, and which contains the farinaceous and mucilaginous part of the seed, is familiarly known as oil-cake, and is largely used as a fattening food for cattle. It is also used as a manure. When ground up, it is known as linseed meal, which is employed for making poultices. The meal is sold in two forms, crushed linseed and linseed meal. Formerly linseed meal was always obtained by grinding English oil-cake to powder and contained little oil, but now the crushed seeds, containing all the oil, are official. Crushed linseed of good quality usually contains from 30 to 35 per cent. of oil.

Linseed oil rapidly absorbs oxygen from the air and forms, when laid on in thin layers, a hard, transparent varnish. It is largely used in the arts for its properties as a drying oil. It is a viscid, yellow liquid, its chief constituent being Linolein. It also contains palmitin, stearin and myristin, with glyceride of linoleic acid. Boiled oil, produced by heating raw linseed oil to a temperature of 150ø C., together with a small proportion of a metallic drier, possesses the drying properties of linseed oil to an enhanced degree. It becomes of a brown colour and dries much more rapidly, and in this state is used in the manufacture of printer's ink.

Medicinal Action and Uses
Emollient, demulcent, pectoral. The crushed seeds or linseed meal make a very useful poultice, either alone or with mustard. In ulceration and superficial or deep-seated inflammationa linseed poultice allays irritation and pain and promotes suppuration. The addition of a little lobelia seed makes it of greater value in cases of boils. It is commonly used for abscesses and other local affections.
Linseed is largely employed as an addition to cough medicines. As a domestic remedy for colds, coughs and irritation of the urinary organs, linseed tea is most valuable. A little honey and lemon juice makes it very agreeable and more efficacious. This demulcent infusion contains a large quantity of mucilage, and is made from 1 oz. of the ground or entire seeds to 1 pint of boiling water. It is taken in wineglassful doses, which may be repeated ad libitum.

Linseed oil, mixed with an equal quantity of time water, known then as Carron Oil, is an excellent application for burns and scalds.
Internally, the oil is sometimes given as a laxative; in cases of gravel and stone it is excellent, and has been administered in pleurisy with great success. It may also be used as an injection in constipation. Mixed with honey, linseed oil has been used as a cosmetic for removing spots from the face.

The oil enters into veterinary pharmacy as a purgative for sheep and horses, and a jelly formed by boiling the seeds is often given to calves.
Linseed is often employed, with other seeds, as food for small birds.

Plantain seeds, also a favourite food of small birds, can, it is said, be used instead of linseed in making poultices, as they contain much mucilage, though not so much oil.

Linseed has occasionally been employed as human food - we hear of the seeds being mixed with corn by the ancient Greeks and Romans for making bread- but it affords little actual nourishment and is apparently unwholesome, being difficult of digestion and provoking flatulence.
The meal has sometimes been used fraud-ulently for adulterating pepper.

FLAX, MOUNTAIN
Linum catharticum (LINN.)
N.O. Linaceae

Synonyms
Purging Flax. Dwarf Flax. Fairy Flax. Mill Mountain

Part Used
Whole herb
Mountain Flax is a pretty little herb, which grows profusely in hilly pastures.

Description
It is an annual, with a small, thready root, which sends up several slender, smooth, straight stems, which rise to a height of 6 to 8 inches, and are sometimes branched towards the upper part. The leaves are small, linear-oblong and obtuse, the lower ones opposite, and the upper alternate. The flowers, 1/2 to 1/4 of an inch in diameter, are white. The plant at first glance much resembles chickweed, being glaucous and glabrous.

Part Used
The whole herb is used medicinally, both fresh and dried, collected in July, when in flower, in the wild state.

Constituents
A green, bitter resin and a neutral, colourless, crystalline principle of a persistently bitter taste, called Linin, to which the herb owes its activity.

Medicinal Action and Uses
This herb was highly extolled by Gerard as a purgative.

It operates chiefly as a gentle cathartic, and is useful in all cases where a brisk purgative is required. As a laxative, it is preferred to senna, though the action is very similar. Itis generally taken combined with a carminative, such as peppermint.

The dried herb has been found very useful in muscular rheumatism and catarrhal affections, the infusion of 1 oz. in a pint of boiling water being taken in wineglassful doses. In liver complaints and jaundice, it has been employed with benefit.

FLAX, PERENNIAL
Linum perenne
N.O. Linaceae

Part Used
Seeds

Preparations and Dosage
Fluid extract, 10 to 30 drops.

A tincture is also made from the entire fresh plant, 2 or 3 drops in water being given every hour or two for diarrhoea.

Country people boil the fresh herb and take it for rheumatic pains, colds, coughs and dropsy.

The Perennial Flax is a native plant not uncommon in some parts of the country upon calcareous soils. It grows about 2 feet in height and is readily distinguished from the annual kind by its paler flowers and narrower leaves. The rootstock usually throws up many stems. It flowers in July.

This species has been recommended for cultivation as a fibre plant, but it has been little adopted, the fibre being coarser and the seeds smaller than those of the Common Flax.

As the plant will last several years and yields an abundant crop of stems, itmight be advantageously grown for paper making.

The seeds contain the same kind of oil as the ordinary species.

The All-Seed or Flax-Seed (Radiola linoides) belongs to the Flax family also; it is a minute annual with very fine, repeatedly forked branches. The leaves are opposite. Flowers in clusters very small, and seeding abundantly. It occurs inland on gravelly and sandy places, but is not common, from the Orkneys to Cornwall, e.g., near St. Ives, on the hills, and in the New Forest, near Lynd-burst.

Culpepper mentions remedies which include 'Lin-seed,' more than once- usually in the form of 'mussilage of Lin-seed'; in one he mentions 'the seeds of Flax' and (later in the same prescription) 'Linseed.' He says it 'heats and moistens, helps pains of the breast, coming cold and pleurises, old aches, and stitches, and softens hard swellings.'

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Birch

Betula pendula - Silver Birch, Warty Birch, Irish Beith

Family - Betulaceae

Description
A smallish fast growing short lived tree. Pioneer and light demanding species. Rapid growth for first 20 years and mature at 40 years. Seldom planted in the UK by foresters although major timber species in Scandinavia, but important for conservation use in woodland.
Height max 25m. Max age 60 - 80 years.

Habitat
This tree tolerates a wide range of habitats, soil ph 3.5 to 7 but best on dry sandy soils and up to higher altitudes than most broadleaved species. Upland birchwoods are an important ecotype in Scotland.

Natural Distribution
Native to all Britain and to west and central Ireland. Also through most of Europe and parts of Asia.

The Tree Year

Propagation and growth
Normally grown from seed although can be grown from cuttings. The seeds are brown flakes with
yellow seed are wind dispersed sprouting the following spring in rock crevices or clear damp earth.
Approx 150,000 seeds per Kg. Treat seed as per
alder. Useful as a nurse species and soil improver.

Timber
White to pale fawn in colour and easily worked.
Flexible and tough but not very strong. Trees in Britain commonly rotten in centre reducing usefulness.

Uses of Wood
Good firewood and pulpwood. Treated wood used for fence posts. Used in turnery and formerly for cotton reels and bobbins. Larger timber not usually produced in Britain. Twigs used for making brooms - besoms.

Food and Drink
Seeds consumed by redpolls, siskins and other small birds. Apparently a wine fermented from the sap was credited with medicinal properties. Wood and bark can be distilled to give birch tar used to make leather waterproof. The bark is waterproof and used in tanning. The young leaves are a diuretic.

Interesting that Birch used to be used for making cotton reels and bobbins, one of the things that is associated with Frigg is the Distaff used for spinning.

Birch - Beith
Betula
"I am a Stag of Seven Tines"
by Winter Cymraes Jan 1996

The White Lady of the Woods, also known as the White Birch stands, slender and graceful, with long branches reaching toward the sky. This Tree is rarely seen singly, growing most often in Groves. She embodies the ideal of graceful femininity and light-filled grace. The Birch grows out of a common, joined trunk so that many appear to grow from the one. People who have been "claimed" by Birch tend to be very gentle in nature and do not stand alone but are joined to others as supportive and close allies, showing devotion to their beliefs and having a strong desire to make others happy and to enhance growth and development.

Birch, as with all Trees, has specific attributes and associations. The Ogham are divided into classification of Chieftain, Shrub, Peasant and Bramble. Beith is a Chieftain. Birch relates, also, to the Tarot card, the Star. It represents the Bardic Grade of Druidry, the "youngest" of the ranks.

Beith is the first Ogham and resonates with the number one. It's colour is white. In the Oghamic alphabet, it is the letter B. The animals associated with Beith are the pheasant and the white cow and it's plant is the Fly Agaric mushroom.

It's name probably comes from the Sanskrit word bhurga which relates to the continuous phases of life, the alpha-omega principle. Taliesin represents the Birch. He was the offspring of Cel and Cerridwen. In the Arthurian legend, Taliesin was known as Merlyn. Although it is commonly accepted that the sage Taliesin was actually named Merlyn, this was the title of the person who was considered the Chief Bard among the Druids, a title that had passed from person-to-person throughout history.

Birch also represents the common everyday work performed to make a living, rather than being associated with a specific occupation or trade, as is the case with other Trees.

Beith is also known for it's protective magical abilities, along with it's role as the herald of new beginnings. A Tree of extreme hardiness, Birch thrives in places where Oak would die. Although the wood of Oak (Duir) is used for building due to it's strength and durability, the resilience and specific magickal properties of Birch lend the use of it's fibre to very specific ends.

In ancient times, brooms made of Birch twigs were commonly used to drive out the spirits of the old year and to "beat the bounds" of property for protection. Thus, broomsticks made of Birch have the added benefit of these protective qualities. This is the Tree commonly used by the shaman to climb the sky ladder to make contact with the Gods of the Air and Beith is associated with Air and winds. Maypoles were often of Birch, as were the twigs used to ignite the Beltane fires, signifying new beginnings and a fresh start. The Yule log is, traditionally, Birch also. Cradles made of Birch are said to protect the infant from harm, particularly of a psychic nature. For the same reasons it is said that a small piece of Birch carried upon a person will prevent kidnapping of the individual by the sidhe , or the Faerie Folk.

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Lily-of-the-Valley

Convallaria magalis (LINN.)
N.O. Liliaceae

Synonyms
May Lily. Convallaria. Our Lady's Tears. Convall-lily. Lily Constancy. Ladder-to-Heaven. Jacob's Ladder. Male Lily

Part Used
Flowers, leaves, whole herb

Habitat
It is a native of Europe, being distributed also over North America and Northern Asia, but in England it is very local as a wild flower. In certain districts it is to be found in abundance, but in many parts it is quite unknown. It is rare in Scotland and doubtfully native and only naturalized in Ireland. It grows mostly in the dryer parts of woods - especially ash woods - often forming extensive patches, and is by no means peculiar to valleys, though both the English and botanical names imply that it is so.

Culpepper reports that in his time these little Lilies grew plentifully on Hampstead Heath, but Green, writing about 100 years ago, tells us that 'since the trees on Hampstead Heath, near London, have been destroyed, it has been but sparingly found there.'
The Lily-of-the-Valley, with its broad leaves and fragrant little, nodding, white, bell-shaped flowers, is familiar to everyone.

Description
In early spring days, the creeping rhizome, or underground stem, sends up quill like shoots emerging from a scaly sheath. As they lengthen and uncoil, they are seen to consist of two leaves, their stalks sheathing one within the other, rising directly from the rhizome on long, narrowing foot-stalks, one leaf often larger than the other. The plain, oval blades, with somewhat concave surfaces, are deeply ribbed and slant a little backwards, thus catching the rain and conducting it by means of the curling-in base of the leaf, as though in a spout, straight down the foot-stalk to the root. At the back of the leaves, lightly enclosed at the base in the same scaly sheath, is the flower-stalk, quite bare of leaves itself and bearing at its summit a number of buds, greenish when young, each on a very short stalk, which become of the purest white, and as they open turn downwards, the flowers hanging, like a pearl of fairy bells, each bell with the edges turned back with six small scallops. The six little stamens are fastened inside the top of the bell, and in the centre hangs the ovary. There is no free honey in the little flowers, but a sweet, juicy sap is stored in a tissue round the base of the ovary and proves a great attraction to bees, who also visit the flower to collect its pollen and who play an important part in the fertilization of the flowers.

By September, the flowers have developed into scarlet berries, each berry containing vermilion flesh round a pale, hard seed. Though the plant produces fruit freely under cultivation, its propagation is mainly effected by its quickly-creeping underground stem, and in the wild state its fruit rarely comes to maturity. Its specific name, Majalis, or Maialis, signifies 'that which belongs to May,' and the old astrological books place the plant under the dominion of Mercury, since Maia, the daughter of Atlas, was the mother of Mercury or Hermes.

There is an old Sussex legend that St. Leonard fought against a great dragon in the woods near Horsham, only vanquishing it after a mortal combat lasting many hours, during which he received grievous wounds, but wherever his blood fell, Lilies-of-the-Valley sprang up to commemorate the desperate fight, and these woods, which bear the name of St. Leonard's Forest to this day, are still thickly carpeted with them.

Legend says that the fragrance of the Lily-of-the-Valley draws the nightingale from hedge and bush, and leads him to choose his mate in the recesses of the glade.

The Lily-of-the-Valley is one of the British-grown plants included in the Pharmacopoeia, and its medicinal virtues have been tested by very long experience. Although not in such general use as the Foxglove, it is still prescribed by physicians with success. Its use dates back to ancient times, for Apuleius in his Herbal written in the fourth century, declares it was found by Apollo and given by him to AEsculapius, the leech.
In recent years it has been largely employed in experiments relating to the forcing of plants by means of anaesthetics such as chloroform and ether. It has been found that the winter buds, placed in the vapour of chloroform for a few hours and then planted, break into leaf and flower considerably before others not tested in this manner, the resulting plants being, moreover, exceptionally fine.

The leaves yield a green dye, with lime water.

Cultivation
Lily-of-the-Valley is fairly easy to cultivate, preferring well-drained, rich, sandy loam, in moist situations.

Plant towards the end of September. The ground for Lily-of-the-Valley should be thoroughly stirred to a depth of 15 inches, early in September, laying it up rough for a few weeks, then breaking it down and adding some rotten manure, or if that cannot be obtained, some kind of artificial manure must be used, but this is better applied later on, hoeing it in just as growth appears. Plant the crowns about 6 inches apart and work fine, rich soil, with some leaf mould if possible, in between. Leave at least 9 inches between the rows. Keep the crowns well below the surface and above all plant firmly.

In some soils the plants will last longer in the best form than in others, but should be transplanted about every fourth year and in light, porous soils it may be necessary to do so every third year. Periodic transplanting, deep culture and liberal feeding produce fine blooms. Autumn is the best time for re-making beds, which are best done in entirely fresh soil. Cut the roots from the old bed out into tufts 6 inches or 9 inches square, and divide into pieces 3 inches square. Replant the tufts the original 6 inches apart. It is best to prepare the entire beds before replanting. Replanted by October, the crowns will be well settled in by winter rains, and the quality of the spikes will show a marked difference in early spring.

Parts Used Medicinally
The whole plant, collected when in flower and dried, and also the root, herb and flowers separately. The inflorescence is said to be the most active part of the herb, and is preferred on that account, being the part usually employed.

The flowers are dried on the scape or flower-stalk, the whole stalk being cut before the lowermost flowers are faded. A good price is obtainable for the flowers, and in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Westmorland and other counties, where the plant grows freely wild, they would pay for collecting. During the process of drying, the white flowers assume a brownish-yellow tinge, and the fragrant odour almost entirely disappears, being replaced by a somewhat narcotic scent; the taste of the flowers is bitter.

If Lily-of-the-Valley flowers are thrown into oil of sweet almonds or olive oil, they impart to it their sweet smell, but to become really fragrant the infusion has to be repeated a dozen times with the same oil, using fresh flowers for each infusion.

Constituents
The chief constituents of Lily-of-the-Valley are two glucosides, Convallamarin, the active principle, a white crystalline powder, readily soluble in water and in alcohol, but only slightly in ether, which acts upon the heart like Digitalin, and has also diuretic action, and Convallarin, which is crystalline in prisms, soluble in alcohol, slightly soluble in water and has a purgative action. There are also present a trace of volatile oil, tannin, salts, etc.

Medicinal Action and Uses
Lily-of-the-Valley is valued as a cardiac tonic and diuretic. The action of the drug closely resembles that of Digitalis, though it is less powerful; it is used as a substitute and strongly recommended in valvular heart disease, also in cases of cardiac debility and dropsy. It slows the disturbed action of a weak, irritable heart, whilst at the same time creasing its power. It is a perfectly safe remedy. No harm has been known to occur from taking it in full and frequent doses, it being preferable in this respect to Digitalis, which is apt to accumulate in the blood with poisonous results.

It proved most useful in cases of poisonous gassing of our men at the Front.

It is generally administered in the form of a tincture. The infusion of 1/2 oz. of herb to 1 pint of boiling water is also taken in tablespoonful doses. Fluid extracts are likewise prepared from the rhizome, whole plant and flowers and the flowers have been used in powdered form.
A decoction of the flowers is said to be useful in removing obstructions in the urinary canal, and it has been also recommended as a substitute for aloes, on account of its purgative quality.

Preparations and Dosages
Fluid extract, herb, 10 to 30 drops. Fluid extract, whole plant, 10 to 30 drops. Fluid extract, flowers, 1/2 to 1 drachm.

Russian peasants have long employed the Lily-of-the-Valley for certain forms of dropsy proceeding from a faulty heart.

Special virtues were once thought to be possessed by water distilled from the flowers, which was known as Aqua aurea (Golden Water), and was deemed worthy to be preserved in vessels of gold and silver. Coles (1657) gives directions for its preparation:
'Take the flowers and steep them in New Wine for the space of a month; which being finished, take them out again and distil the wine three times over in a Limbeck. The wine is more precious than gold, for if any one that is troubled with apoplexy drink thereof with six grains of Pepper and a little Lavender water they shall not need to fear it that moneth.'

Dodoens (1560) pointed out how this water 'doth strengthen the Memorie and comforteth the Harte,' and about the same time, Joachim

Camerarius, a renowned physician of Nuremberg, gave a similar prescription, which Gerard quotes, saying that
'a Glasse being filled with the flowers of MayLilies and set in an Ant Hill with the mouth close stopped for a month's space and then taken out, ye shall find a liquor in the glasse which being outwardly applied helps the gout very much.'

This spirit was also considered excellent as an embrocation for sprains, as well as for rheumatism.

We are told by old writers that a decoction of the bruised root, boiled in wine, is good for pestilential fevers, and that bread made of barley meal mixed with the juice is an excellent cure for dropsy, also that an ointment of the root and lard is good for ulcers and heals burns and scalds without leaving a scar.

Culpepper said of the Lily-of-the-Valley:
'It without doubt strengthens the brain and renovates a weak memory. The distilled water dropped into the eyes helps inflammations thereof. The spirit of the flowers, distilled in wine, restoreth lost speech, helps the palsy, and is exceedingly good in the apoplexy, comforteth the heart and vital spirits.'

The powdered flowers have been said to excite sneezing, proving serviceable in the relief of headache and earache; but to some sick people the scent of the flowers has proved harmful.

In some parts of Germany, a wine is still prepared from the flowers, mixed with raisins.

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Hawthorn

Crataegus monogyna - Hawthorn, May, Whitethorn, Irish Sceach geal

Family - Rosaceae

Description
Deciduous tree dense leaved and thorny with short trunk. Commonly used for stock proof hedging. New shoots and leaves are reddish. Distinctive white blossom with strong scent and red berries (haws) later.
Height 10 - 15m. Age long lived - 250 years

Habitat
Found on all soil types. Protects seedlings of other broadleaved trees particularly oak from predation and hence aids natural regeneration.

Natural Distribution
Throughout British Isles and Europe to 500m.

The Tree Year

Propagation and growth
Seed is deeply dormant - treat as for Acer campestre. Approx 8000 germinable seeds per Kg.
Also grown from cuttings. Grows rapidly for first 15 years or so. For hedges grow in seed beds for 2 years and then transplant into rows. Ready to plant into hedges at 4 years. Weeding improves growth significantly. Laying hedges to make them stockproof is an old country skill.

Timber
White streaky or pale pinkish. Tough hard and heavy wood.

Uses of Wood
Walking sticks, tool handles, engraving and all turnery. Good firewood.

Food and Drink
Haws attractive to birds and spread in this way.

Related Species
Midland Thorn

The Hawthorn - Huathe
Crataegus
by Mara Freeman

"A hundred years I slept beneath a thorn
Until the tree was root and branches of my thought,
Until white petals blossomed in my crown."

From "The Traveller" by Kathleen Raine
The hawthorn, once known simply as "May", is naturally enough the tree most associated with this month in many parts of the British Isles. When we read of medieval knights and ladies riding out "a-maying"on the first morning of May, this refers to the flowering hawthorn boughs they gathered to decorate the halls rather than the month itself. For on this day, according to the Old Style calendar that was in use until the 18th century, the woods and hedges were alight with its glistening white blossoms.

This and similar customs to welcome in the summer flourished in rural places until quite recently. In some villages, mayers would leave a hawthorn branch at every house, singing traditional songs as they went. The seventeenth-century English poet Robert Herrick wrote:
"There's not a budding boy or girl this day,
But is got up and gone to bring in May;
A deal of youth ere this is come
Back, with whitethorn laden home."
The young girls rose at dawn to bathe in dew gathered from hawthorn flowers to ensure their beauty in the coming year, as the old rhyme goes:
"The fair maid who, the first of May,
Goes to the fields at break of day
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree,
Will ever after handsome be."
For May was the month of courtship and love-making after the winter's cold; and so the hawthorn is often found linked with love-making. In ancient Greece the wood was used for the marriage torch; and girls wore hawthorn crowns at weddings. One writer has even gone so far as to suggest that the "stale, sweet scent from the trimethylamine the flowers contain, makes them suggestive of sex." (Geoffrey Grigson: The Englishman's Flora, Phoenix House, 1956)

But while hawthorn was a propitious tree at Maytime, in other circumstances it was considered unlucky. Witches were supposed to make their brooms from it, and in some parts it was equated with the abhorred elder, as in the rhyme:
"Hawthorn bloom and elder-flowers
Will fill a house with evil powers."
Even today many people will not allow the branches inside the house. For, as one might expect from its association with Beltane, a time when the two worlds meet, it is considered a tree sacred to the faeries, and thus to be regarded with fear at the least, respect at most.. As such, it often stands at the threshold of the Otherworld. In the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, the Scots poet is taken away by the Queen of Elfland as he sits beneath an ancient thorn known as the Eildon tree. In another old rhyme, the Ballad of Sir Cawline, a lady dares the hero to go to Eldridge Hill where a hawthorn grows, to await there the faery king.

A report of a fairy ride from 19th century Scotland illustrates how prevalent this tradition was years after these ballads were written: an old woman, sitting with a neighbor under a hawthorn tree one evening heard loud laughter and saw the fairies by their own unearthly light. She recounts that,

"A beam of light was dancing owre them mair bonnie than moonshine: they were a wee wee folk wi' green scarves on, but ane that rade foremost, and that ane was a good deal larger than the lave wi' bonnie lang hair, bun' about wi' a strap whilk glinted like stars.....Marion and me was in a brade lea fiel' where they came by us; a high hedge o' haw trees keepit them frae gaun through Johnnie Corrie's corn, but they lap a' owre it like sparrows and gallopt into a green know beyont it."

In Ireland, too, hawthorns have always been highly respected as faery trees. They were often referred to as "gentle bushes" after the custom of not naming faeries directly out of respect. Solitary thorns were known as the faeries' Trysting Trees, and frequently grew on barrows and tumps or at crossroads, thought to be a favorite location of pagan altars.

Hawthorns often stand over holy wells, also traditional thresholds of the Otherworld, where pilgrims festoon them with ribbons, rags and other votive offerings. A sacred hawthorn hung over the St. Patrick's Stone on an island in the River Shannon and filled its hollow with dew, which had great healing powers. St. Bridget's Well in Cork also collected the dew from an ancient faery thorn above it.

I myself can attest to the powers of the old thorn at St. Madron's Well in Cornwall, on which my then husband-to-be and I hung two strips from an old bandanna: we both made a silent wish that came true when I accepted his proposal of marriage a few weeks later!

Dire consequences have traditionally attended those foolhardy enough to disturb a faery thorn, as many local tales recount. Sickness, death or financial loss could attend picking a leaf or plucking a switch, and the tree might even bleed or scream. Even hanging out your washing on a thorn was ill-advised, as it might cover up the faeries' clothes already spread out there.

Earlier in this century, a construction firm ordered the felling of a faery thorn on a building site in Downpatrick, Ulster. The foreman had to do the deed himself, as all of his workers refused. When he dug up the root, hundreds of white mice - supposed to be the faeries themselves - ran out, and while the foreman was carting away the soil in a barrow, a nearby horse shied, crushing him against a wall and resulting in the loss of one of his legs.

Even as recently as 1982,workers in the De Lorean car plant in Northern Ireland claimed that one of the reasons the business had so many problems was because a faery thorn bush had been disturbed during the construction of the plant. The management took this so seriously that they actually had a similar bush brought in and planted with all due ceremony!

Christianity also played its part in preserving the veneration of the hawthorn. Because Christ was given a crown of thorns at his crucifixion, the tradition of the tree's magical associations has continued in Christian legend. In the Middle Ages, Sir John Mandeville wrote:
"Then was our Lord ylad into a Gardyn...and there the Jews scorned him, and maden him a Crowne of the Braunches of Albespyne, that is White Thorn, that grew in the same Gardyn, and setten yt on hys Heved.....And therefore hathe the White Thorn many Vertues. For he that berethe a Braunche on him thereoffe, no Thondre ne no maner of Tempest may dere (hurt)him; ne in the Hows that it is inne may no evylle Gost entre."

The reference to the hawthorn providing protection from storms may relate to the ancient belief in the Classical world, that it sprang from lightning. The most famous holy thorn is at Glastonbury, in south-west England, where it grows amid the ruins of the medieval abbey. According to legend, Joseph of Arimathea brought it from the Holy Land when he bore the Grail to England, and it blooms every Christmas to celebrate Christ's birth. It is likely, however, that the Glastonbury monks attached Christian associations to the tree in an attempt to put an end to the hawthorn's association with the pagan sexuality of spring festivals. Certainly, the thorn seems to have roused the ire of the Puritans who cut it down twice - first in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and later under Cromwell. One scion of this tree still grows on nearby Wirral Hill, which is almost certainly an ancient pagan site.

So no wonder a confusion of meanings attends the humble hawthorn in later times! While some believed witches rode on hawthorn brooms, others were placing sprigs of it above cottage and stable door to keep witches out. In some places, to sit beneath a hawthorn tree meant to meet with the denizens of the Otherworld; while in others the tree afforded protection from the same! (("Creep under the thorn,/It will save you from harm.") If you are lucky enough to lie under a hawthorn bush on Beltane eve, and inhale the musky scent of the five-petalled white blossoms, guarded by their dark spiky thorns, then you may discover its meaning for yourself.

On a Hawthorn Tree
Oh! come tosee me, when the soft warm May
Bids all my boughs their gay embroidery
wear,
In my bright season's transitory day,
While my young perfume loads the enamoured air.
Oh, come tosee me, when the sky is blue,
And backs my spangles with an azure
ground.
While the thick ivy bosses clustering through,
See their dark tufts with silvery circlets
crowned.
Then be the Spring in all its pomp arrayed,
the lilac's blossom, the laburnum's blaze,
Nature hath reared beyond this Hawthorn glade
No fairer alter to her Maker's praise.
George W.F. Howard
Earl of Carlisle 1802-1864

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Leek/Garlic

GARLIC
Allium sativum (LINN.)
N.O. Liliaceae

Synonyms
Poor Man's Treacle

Part Used
Bulb
The Common Garlic, a member of the same group of plants as the Onion, is of such antiquity as a cultivated plant, that it is difficult with any certainty to trace the country of its origin. De Candolle, in his treatise on the Origin of Cultivated Plants, considered that it was apparently indigenous to the southwest of Siberia, whence it spread to southern Europe, where it has become naturalized, and is said to be found wild in Sicily. It is widely cultivated in the Latin countries bordering on the Mediterranean. Dumas has described the air of Provenee as being 'particularly perfumed by the refined essence of this mystic-ally attractive bulb.'

Description
The leaves are long, narrow and flat like grass. The bulb (the only part eaten) is of a compound nature, consisting of numerous bulblets, known technically as 'cloves,' grouped together between the membraneous scales and enclosed within a whitish skin, which holds them as in a sac.
The flowers are placed at the end of a stalk rising direct from the bulb and are whitish, grouped together in a globular head, or umbel, with an enclosing kind of leaf or spathae, and among them are small bulbils.

To prevent the plant running to leaf, Pliny (Natural History, XIX, 34) advised bending the stalk downward and covering it with earth; seeding, he observed, may be prevented by twisting the stalk.

In England, Garlic, apart from medicinal purposes, is seldom used except as a seasoning, but in the southern counties of Europe it is a common ingredient in dishes, and is largely consumed by the agricultural population. From the earliest times, indeed, Garlic has been used as an article of diet.

History
Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks (Theophrastus relates) on the piles of stones at cross-roads as a supper for Hecate, and according to Pliny garlic and onion were invocated as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths.

It was largely consumed by the ancient Greeks and Romans, as we may read in Virgil's Eclogues. Horace, however, records his detestation of Garlic, the smell of which, even in his days (as much later in Shakespeare's time), was accounted a sign of vulgarity. He calls it 'more poisonous than hemlock,' and relates how he was made ill by eating it at the table of Maecenas. Among the ancient Greeks, persons who partook of it were not allowed to enter the temples of Cybele. Homer, however, tells us that it was to the virtues of the 'Yellow Garlic' that Ulysses owed his escape from being changed by Circe into a pig, like each of his companions.

Homer also makes Garlic part of the entertainment which Nestor served up to his guest Machaon.

There is a Mohammedan legend that
'when Satan stepped out from the Garden of Eden after the fall of man, Garlick sprang up from the spot where he placed his left foot, and Onion from that where his right foot touched.'

There is a curious superstition in some parts of Europe, that if a morsel of the bulb be chewed by a man running a race it will prevent his competitors from getting ahead of him, and Hungarian jockeys will sometimes fasten a clove of Garlic to the bits of their horses in the belief that any other racers running close to those thus baited, will fall back the instant they smell the offensive odour.

Many of the old writers praise Garlic as a medicine, though others, including Gerard, are sceptical as to its powers. Pliny gives an exceedingly long list of complaints, in which it was considered beneficial, and Galen eulogizes it as the rustics' Theriac, or Heal-All. One of its older popular names in this country was 'Poor Man's Treacle,' meaning theriac, in which sense we find it in Chaucer and many old writers.

A writer in the twelfth century - Alexander Neckam- recommends it as a palliative for the heat of the sun in field labour, and in a book of travel, written by Mountstuart Elphinstone about 100 years ago, he says that
'the people in places where the Simoon is frequent, eat Garlic and rub their lips and noses with it when they go out in the heat of the summer to prevent their suffering from the Simoon.'

Garlic is mentioned in several Old English vocabularies of plants from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, and is described by the herbalists of the sixteenth century from Turner (1548) onwards. It is stated to have been grown in England before the year 1540. In Cole's Art of Simpling we are told that cocks which have been fed on Garlic are 'most stout to fight, and so are Horses': and that if a garden is infested with moles, Garlic or leeks will make them 'leap out of the ground presently.'

The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, being derived from gar (a spear) and lac (a plant), in reference to the shape of its leaves.

Cultivation
The ground should be prepared in a similar manner as for the closelyallied onion.

The soil may be sandy, loam or clay, though Garlic flourishes best in a rich, moist, sandy soil. Dig over well, freeing the ground from all lumps and dig some lime into it. Tread firmly. Divide the bulbs into their component 'cloves' - each fair-sized bulb will divide into ten or twelve cloves - and with a dibber put in the cloves separately, about 2 inches deep and about 6 inches apart, leaving about 1 foot between the rows. It is well to give a dressing of soot.

Garlic beds should be in a sunny spot. They must be kept thoroughly free from weeds and the soil gathered up round the roots with a Dutch hoe from time to time.

When planted early in the spring, in February or March, the bulbs should be ready for lifting in August, when the leaves will be beginning to wither. Should the summer have been wet and cold, they may probably not be ready till nearly the middle of September.
The use of Garlic as an antiseptic was in great demand during the past war. In 1916 the Government asked for tons of the bulbs, offering Is. per lb. for as much as could be produced. Each pound generally represents about 20 bulbs, and 5 lb. divided up into cloves and planted, will yield about 38 lb. at the end of the growing season, so it will prove a remunerative crop.

The following appeared in the Morning Post of December 12 1922:
'A Dog's Recovery
'Mr. W. H. Butlin, Tiptree, records the following experience: A fox-terrier, aged 14 years, appeared to be developing rapidly a pitiable condition, with a swollen neck and an ugly intractable sore at the root of the tail, and dull, coarse coat shedding abundantly. I administered "Yadil Antiseptic" in his drinking water and in less than a month the dog became perfectly sound and well, a mirabile dictu, his coat became firm, soft, and glossy.' (Yadil is a patent medicine said to contain Garlic.)

'In cases of arterial tension, MM. Chailley-Bert, Cooper, and Debrey, at the Society of Biology, recommended about 30 drops of alcoholic extract as a remedy. To be administered by the mouth or intravenously.'

Although only the cultivated Garlic is utilized medicinally, all of the other species have similar properties in a greater or less degree. Several of the species of Allium are natives of this country.

The crow GARLIC (A. vineale) is widely distributed and fairly common in many districts, but the bulbs are very small and the labour of digging them would be great. It is frequent in pastures and communicates its rank taste to mik and butter, when eaten by cows.

NOTE
Professor Henslow calls A. vineale the Field Garlic, and A. oleraceum the Crow Garlic.

RAMSONS
(A. ursinum) grows in woods and has a very acrid taste and smell, but it also has very small bulbs, which would hardly render it of practical use.

Ransoms is also very generally known as 'Broad-leaved Garlic.'

The FIELD GARLIC
(A. oleraceum) is rather a rare plant. Both this and the Crow Garlic have, however, occasionally been employed as potherbs or for flavouring. It is an old country notion that if crows eat Crow Garlic, it stupefies them.

Ramsons, the wild Wood Garlic, but for its evil smell would rank among the most beautiful of our British plants. Its broad leaves are very similar to those of the Lily-of-the-Valley, and its star-like flowers are a dazzling white, but its odour is too strong to admit of it being picked for its beauty, and many woods, especially in the Cotswold Hills, are spots to be avoided when it is in flower, being so closely carpeted with the plants that every step taken brings out the offensive odour.

There are many species of Allium grown in the garden, the flowers of some of which are even sweet-smelling (as A. odorum and A. fragrans), but they are the exceptions, and even these have the Garlic scent in their leaves and roots.

Constituents
The active properties of Garlic depend on a pungent, volatile, essential oil, which may readily be obtained by distillation with water. It is a sulphide of the radical Allyl, present in all the onion family. This oil is rich in sulphur, but contains no oxygen. The pecular penetrating odour of Garlic is due to this intensely smelling sulphuret of allyl, and is so diffusive that even when the bulb is applied to the soles of the feet, its odour is exhaled by the lungs.

Medicinal Action and Uses
Diaphoretic, diuretic, expectorant, stimulant. Many marvellous effects and healing powers have been ascribed to Garlic. It possesses stimulant and stomachic properties in addition to its other virtues.

As an antiseptic, its use has long been recognized. In the late war it was widely employed in the control of suppuration in wounds. The raw juice is expressed, diluted with water, and put on swabs of sterilized Sphagnum moss, which are applied to the wound. Where this treatment has been given, it has been proved that there have been no septic results, and the lives of thousands of men have been saved by its use.

It is sometimes externally applied in ointments and lotions, and as an antiseptic, to disperse hard swellings, also pounded and employed as a poultice for scrofulous sores. It is said to prevent anthrax in cattle, being largely used for the purpose.

In olden days, Garlic was employed as a specific for leprosy. It was also believed that it had most beneficial results in cases of smallpox, if cut small and applied to the soles of the feet in a linen cloth, renewed daily.

It formed the principal ingredient in the 'Four Thieves' Vinegar,' which was adapted so successfully at Marseilles for protection against the plague when it prevailed there in 1722. This originated, it is said, with four thieves who confessed, that whilst protected by the liberal use of aromatic vinegar during the plague, they plundered the dead bodies of its victims with complete security.

It is stated that during an outbreak of infectious fever in certain poor quarters of London, early last century, the French priests who constantly used Garlic in all their dishes, visited the worst cases with impunity, whilst the English clergy caught the infection, and in many instances fell victims to the disease.

Syrup of Garlic is an invaluable medicine for asthma, hoarseness, coughs, difficulty of breathing, and most other disorders of the lungs, being of particular virtue in chronic bronchitis, on account of its powers of promoting expectoration. It is made by pouring a quart of water, boiled hot, upon a pound of the fresh root, cut into slices, and allowed to stand in a closed vessel for twelve hours, sugar then being added to make it of the consistency of syrup. Vinegar and honey greatly improve this syrup as a medicine. A little caraway and sweet fennel seed bruised and boiled for a short time in the vinegar before it is added to the Garlic, will cover the pungent smell of the latter.

A remedy for asthma, that was formerly most popular, is a syrup of Garlic, made by boiling the bulbs till soft and adding an equal quantity of vinegar to the water in which they have been boiled, and then sugared and boiled down to a syrup. The syrup is then poured over the boiled bulbs, which have been allowed to dry meanwhile, and kept in a jar. Each morning a bulb or two is to be taken, with a spoonful of the syrup.

Syrup made by melting 11/2 oz. of lump sugar in 1 oz. of the raw expressed juice may be given to children in cases of coughs without inflammation.

The successful treatment of tubercular consumption by Garlic has been recorded, the freshly expressed juice, diluted with equal quantities of water, or dilute spirit of wine, being inhaled antiseptically.

Bruised and mixed with lard, it has been proved to relieve whooping-cough if rubbed on the chest and between the shoulder-blades.

An infusion of the bruised bulbs, given before and after every meal, has been considered of good effect in epilepsy.

A clove or two of Garlic, pounded with honey and taken two or three nights successively, is good in rheumatism.

Garlic has also been employed with advantage in dropsy, removing the water which may already have collected and preventing its future accumulation. It is stated that some dropsies have been cured by it alone.

If sniffed into the nostrils, it will revive a hysterical sufferer. Amongst physiological results, it is reported that Garlic makes the eye retina more sensitive and less able to bear strong light.

The juice of Garlic, and milk of Garlic made by boiling the bruised bulbs in milk-is used as a vermifuge.

Preparations
Juice, 10 to 30 drops. Syrup, 1 drachm. Tincture, 1/2 to 1 drachm. Wine of Garlic-made by macerating three or four bulbs in a quart of proof spirit is a good stimulant lotion for badness of the head.

Used in cookery it is a great aid to digestion, and keeps the coats of the stomach healthy. For this reason, essential oil is made from it and is used in the form of pills.

If a very small piece is chopped fine and put into chicken's food daily, it is a sure preventative of the gapes. Pullets will lay finer eggs by having garlic in their food before they start laying, but when they commence to lay it must be stopped, otherwise it will flavour the eggs.

Bengal Mango Chutney
Mrs. Beeton (in an old edition of her Household Management, 1866) gives the following recipe for making 'Bengal Mango Chutney,' which she states was given by a native to an English lady who had long been a resident in India, and who since her return to England had become quite celebrated amongst her friends for the excellence of this Eastern relish.

Ingredients. 11/2 lb. moist sugar, 3/4 lb. salt, 1/4 lb. Garlic, 1/4 lb. onions, 3/4 lb. powdered ginger, 1/4 lb. dried chillies, 3/4 lb. dried mus-tard-seed, 3/4 lb. stoned raisins, 2 bottles of best vinegar, 30 large, unripe, sour apples.

Mode. The sugar must be made into syrup; the Garlic, onions and ginger be finely pounded in a mortar; the mustard-seed be washed in cold vinegar and dried in the sun; the apples be peeled, cored and sliced, and boiled in a bottle and a half of the vinegar. When all this is done, and the apples are quite cold, put them into a large pan and gradually mix the whole of the rest of the ingredients, including the remaining half-bottleof vinegar. It must be well stirred until the whole is thoroughly blended, and then put into bottles for use. Tie a piece of wet bladder over the mouths of the bottles, after which they are well corked. This chutney is very superior to any which can be bought, and one trial will prove it to be delicious.

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Apple

Malus sylvestris - Crab Apple. Irish Cran fia-uill

Family - Rosaceae

Description
Small thorny deciduous tree. Height 16m

Habitat
Common in Oak woods and hedges.

Natural Distribution
Throughout British Isles except Northern Scotland.

The Tree Year

Propagation and growth
-

Timber
Hard close grained wood.

Uses of Wood
Wood carving, inlay work, mallets, screws. Good firewood with pleasant aroma.

Food and Drink
The attractive small fruit are extremely sour but make good jelly by themselves or with blackberries or rowan berries. Crab Apple wine is reported to be potent.

Related Species
Orchard Apples are derived from Malus sylvestris and other species.

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Yarrow

Achillea millefolium (LINN.)
N.O. Compositae

Synonyms
Milfoil. Old Man's Pepper. Soldier's Woundwort. Knight's Milfoil. Herbe Militaris. Thousand Weed. Nose Bleed. Carpenter's Weed. Bloodwort. Staunch-weed. Sanguinary. Devil's Nettle. Devil's Plaything. Bad Man's Plaything. Yarroway. (Saxon) Gearwe (Dutch) Yerw (Swedish) Field Hop

Part Used
Whole Herb

Habitat
Yarrow grows everywhere, in the grass, in meadows, pastures, and by the roadside. As it creeps greatly by its roots and multiplies by seeds it becomes a troublesome weed in gardens, into which it is seldom admitted in this country, though it is cultivated in the gardens of Madeira
The name Yarrow is a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon name for the plant-gearwe; the Dutch, yerw.

Description
The stem is angular and rough, the leaves alternate, 3 to 4 inches long and 1 inch broad, clasping the stem at the base, bipinnatifid, the segments very finely cut, giving the leaves a feathery appearance.

It flowers from June to September, the flowers, white or pale lilac, being like minute daisies, in flattened, terminal, loose heads, or cymes. The whole plant is more or less hairy, with white, silky appressed hairs.

Yarrow was formerly much esteemed as a vulnerary, and its old names of Soldier's Wound Wort and Knight's Milfoil testify to this. The Highlanders still make an ointment from it, which they apply to wounds, and Milfoil tea is held in much repute in the Orkneys for dispelling melancholy. Gerard tells us it is the same plant with which Achilles stanched the bleeding wounds of his soldiers, hence the name of the genus, Achillea. Others say that it was discovered by a certain Achilles, Chiron's disciple. It was called by the Ancients, the Herba Militaris, the military herb.

Its specific name, millefolium, is derived from the many segments of its foliage, hence also its popular name, Milfoil and Thousand Weed. Another popular name for it is Nose-bleed, from its property of stanching bleeding of the nose, though another reason given for this name is that the leaf, being rolled up and applied to the nostrils, causes a bleeding from the nose, more or less copious, which will thus afford relief to headache. Parkinson tells us that 'if it be put into the nose, assuredly it will stay the bleeding of it' - so it seems to act either way.

It was one of the herbs dedicated to the Evil One, in earlier days, being sometimes known as Devil's Nettle, Devil's Plaything, Bad Man's Plaything, and was used for divination in spells.

Yarrow, in the eastern counties, is termed Yarroway, and there is a curious mode of divination with its serrated leaf, with which the inside of the nose is tickled while the following lines are spoken. If the operation causes the nose to bleed, it is a certain omen of success:
'Yarroway, Yarroway, bear a white blow, If my love love me, my nose will bleed now.'

An ounce of Yarrow sewed up in flannel and placed under the pillow before going to bed, having repeated the following words, brought a vision of the future husband or wife:
'Thou pretty herb of Venus' tree, Thy true name it is Yarrow; Now who my bosom friend must be, Pray tell thou me to-morrow.'
(HalliweWs Popular Rhymes, etc.)

It has been employed as snuff, and is also called Old Man's Pepper, on account of the pungency of its foliage. Both flowers and leaves have a bitterish, astringent, pungent taste.

In the seventeenth century it was an ingredient of salads.

Part Used
The whole plant, stems, leaves and flowers, collected in the wild state, in August, when in flower.

Constituents
A dark green, volatile oil, a peculiar principle, achillein, and achilleic acid, which is said to be identical with aconitic acid, also resin, tannin, gum and earthy ash, consisting of nitrates, phosphates and chlorides of potash and lime.

Medicinal Action and Uses
Diaphoretic, astringent, tonic, stimulant and mild aromatic.

Yarrow Tea is a good remedy for severe colds, being most useful in the commencement of fevers, and in cases of obstructed perspiration. The infusion is made with 1 oz. of dried herb to 1 pint of boiling water, drunk warm, in wineglassful doses. It may be sweetened with sugar, honey or treacle, adding a little Cayenne Pepper, and to each dose, a teaspoonful of Composition Essence. It opens the pores freely and purifies the blood, and is recommended in the early stages of children's colds, and in measles and other eruptive diseases.

A decoction of the whole plant is employed for bleeding piles, and is good for kidney disorders. It has the reputation also of being a preventative of baldness, if the head be washed with it.

Preparations
Fluid extract, 1/2 to 1 drachm.

An ointment made by the Highlanders of Scotland of the fresh herb is good for piles, and is also considered good against the scab in sheep.
An essential oil has been extracted from the flowers, but is not now used.

Linnaeus recommended the bruised herb, fresh, as an excellent vulnerary and styptic. It is employed in Norway for the cure of rheumatism, and the fresh leaves chewed are said to cure toothache.

In Sweden it is called 'Field Hop' and has been used in the manufacture of beer. Linnaeus considered beer thus brewed more intoxicating than when hops were used.

It is said to have a similar use in Africa. Culpepper spoke of Yarrow as a profitable herb in cramps, and Parkinson recommends a decoction to be drunk warm for ague.

The medicinal values of the Yarrow and the Sneezewort (A. millefolium and A. ptarmica), once famous in physic, were discarded officially in 1781.

Woolly Yellow Yarrow (A. tomentosa) is very rare, and a doubtful native; its leaves are divided and woolly, the flowers bright yellow.

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Yew

Taxus baccata - Yew. Irish Iur.

Family - Taxaceae

Description
Medium sized evergreen tree with characteristic
red fleshy berries (called arils). Single seed in each aril. Height Typically 15 - 28 m.
Age Very long lived - Maybe even 2000 years.

Habitat
On limestone and chalk. Often occurs in the dense shade of Oak woods. Used for hedging and topiary.

Natural Distribution
Throughout Britain and Ireland. Native to most of Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa.

The Tree Year

Propagation and Growth
Deeply dormant seed needing treatment from collection in autumn to the spring of the following season but one (ie 18 months). 10,000 seeds per kg. Also propagated from cuttings and this may prove to be easiest method.

Timber
Brown very durable wood.

Uses of Wood
Used for furniture and for tool handles. Good firewood. Can fetch very high prices when ofright quality for veneer.

Food and drink
All parts of the tree except red aril are poisonous to man and animals although deer browse young seedlings. Birds eat the arils and spread theseed.

Related Species
Irish yew is a variety with tall and narrow form

Yew - Ioho
Taxus
"Patriarch of Long-lasting Woods.... "
Mara Freeman, 1996

In early times, the darkly glorious yew-tree was probably the only evergreen tree in Britain. Both Druids with their belief in reincarnation, and later Christians with their teaching of the resurrection, regarded it as a natural emblem of everlasting life. Its capacity for great age: enriched its symbolic value. The early Irish regarded it as one of the most ancient beings on earth. Yew is the last on a list of oldest things in a passage from the fourteenth century Book of Lismore: "Three lifetimes of the yew for the world from its beginning to its end."

The yew's reputation for long life is due to the unique way in which the tree grows. Its branches grow down into the ground to form new stems, which then rise up around the old central growth as separate but linked trunks. After a time, they cannot be distinguished from the original tree. So the yew has always been a symbol of death and rebirth, the new that springs out of the old, and a fitting tree for us to study at the beginning of this new year. As the days now grow longer with the beginning of a new solar cycle, we move into the future on the achievements of the past, new creativity springs forth grounded in the accomplishments of " the year gone by.

In Irish mythology, the yew is one of the five sacred trees brought from the Otherworld at the division of the land into five parts. Known as the Tree of Ross, it was said to be the "offspring of the tree that is in Paradise", and it brought lasting plenty to Ireland. In the Brehon Laws, it is named as one of the Seven Chieftain Trees, with heavy penalties for felling one. Ownership of a yew-tree is the cause of a great battle in the twelfth century tale, "Yew Tree of the Disputing Sons". The tree's high status is also shown in an Irish tale from the Historical Cycle in which a swine herd dreamed he saw a yew tree upon a rock, with an oratory in front of it. Angels ascended and descended from a flagstone at the threshold. He told a druid who interpreted the dream to mean that the rock would be the seat of kings of Munster from that day forth, and the first king would be he who kindled a fire beneath the yew.

Staves of yew were kept in pagan graveyards in Ireland where they were used for measuring corpses and graves. In the tragic love story of Baile and Ailinn from the Historical Cycle, Baile dies of grief for the beautiful Ailinn. When he is buried, a yew-tree grew out of his grave, and "the likeness of his head was in the branches." After seven years, poets cut down the yew and made writing tablets out of it.
Another use of yew-wood by poets is recounted in a tale of Conn of the Hundred Battles, who with his druids and poets, lost his way in a mist and came to a supernatural world where a druid was recording names of every prince from Conn's time onwards on staves of yew. In the bardic schools, poets used staves of yew to help them memorize long incantations. We hear tell how the poet Cesarn "cut (the words) in Ogam into 4 rods of yew. Each was 24' long and had 8 sides.

Staves of yew were also used for carving Ogam letters for magical use, according to the evidence of early literature. In The Wooing of Etaine, the beautiful heroine was abducted from her husband, Eochaid, who searched for her for a year and a day to no avail. Finally, he sought the help of his druid, Dalla/n 'who made four rods of yew and inscribed them with Ogam. Through this means he discovered that Etaine was in the si/d of Bri Leith, with the faery king, Midir.

Veneration of the yew continued into Christian times where they have always been associated with churchyards. An early medieval Irish poem fragment refers to a yew outside an early Celtic Christian cell:

There is here above the brotherhood
A bright tall glossy yew;
The melodious bell sends out a
clear keen note
In St. Columba's church.

Although from Ireland, this verse may refer to the Isle of Iona, the sacred island of St. Columba off western Mull, Scotland, which is said to derive its name from the Gaelic word for 'yew-tree', Ioho or Ioha. The island was once a powerful Druid centre, planted with sacred groves of yew, and the traditions of Iona traditionally involve rebirth and reincarnation. On mainland Scotland, St. Ninian, a priest in Roman Britain, planted numerous yews in the churchyards, including the famous Fortingale Yew in Perthshire where Beltane fires were lit each year in a cleft of the trunk. A rhyme about this tree states:

"Here Druid priests their altars placed,
And sun and moon adored."

For yew was one of the nine sacred trees for kindling Beltane fires, and the old Scottish rhyme about the need-fire calls it 'the tree of resilience." Another famous Scottish yew stood at the Tobar an luthair, the Yew Tree Well in Easter Ross. Its presence lent healing qualities to the water, until someone cut the tree down. Whoever did the deed must have regretted it, for an old curse stated:

Well of the Yew Tree, Well of the Yew Tree,
To thee should honour be given;
In Hell a bed is ready for him
Who cuts the tree about thine ears.

A similar fate awaited an individual at the church of St. Kevin of Glendalough, in County Wicklow, Ireland, who was cursed because, as a rhyme states:

He cut down the Sacred Yew
That holy Kevin planted.

After the Norman Conquest a spate of church building led to the planting of many churchyard yews. Some still thrive today, although over 900 years old.. Fortunately their function as icons of everlasting life had been forgotten by the 17th century, or they would have probably not survived destruction by the Puritans. The yew trees were usually planted in a deliberate manner: one beside the path leading from the funeral gateway of the churchyard to the main door of the church, and the other beside the path leading to the lesser doorway. In early times, the priest and clerks would gather under the first yew to await the corpse-bearers. The remains of Anglo-Saxon churches suggest that the early English planted yews in a circle around the church, which were usually built upon a central mound.

There is also a tradition that the Cross was a yew tree, perhaps because of its symbolism of immortality. A verse from a traditional carol from Herefordshire, The Seven Virgins, runs:

Go you down, go you down to yonder town,
And sit in the gallery:
And there you 'II find sweet Jesus Christ,
Nailed to a big yew-tree.

The famous yew-trees of Nevern in Dyfed, Wales, are said to bleed a red substance every year in sympathy with the Christ. Branches of yew were borne in Palm Sunday processions instead of palm or olive and the altars of many churches were traditionally decked with branches of yew on Easter Day. The yew is also associated with another time of resurrection -- New Year's Day, where in some parishes, villagers would gather beneath the churchyard yew to see in the New Year.

In later times, only the death side of the Yew's symbolism remained in the popular mind. Shakespeare wrote of "the dismal yew" and his witches bore "slips of yew slivered in the moon's eclipse." 19th century naturalist Gilbert White described the trees as "an emblem of mortality by their funereal appearance." A dark-canopied grove of yews was often regarded as a place to be shunned, and a bough brought into the house portended a death in the family. The cemetery is nowadays looked upon as a place of fear rather than a sacred place of return to the ancestral realm.

So let us return to the wisdom of the Druids and remember at the turning of the year the teachings of the sacred yew: that darkness is the matrix from which light springs forth, and that out of death, life arises.