Monday 31 May 2010

Not much!

A short post today as we've not had a walk in the country this morning. It's always a bit too busy at weekends and bank holidays - which doesn't do much for my misanthropic tendencies - so it was off to Farmfoods for a little shopping instead.
Just an update to the problem of the un-named brassica from last Wednesday. I am now almost 100% certain it is a Hoary Whitlowgrass (Draba incana).
Culpepper has this plant as a useful addition to the medieval medicine cabinet, saying "...A strong infusion of the whole plant, fresh gathered, is an excellent sweetener of the blood and juices, and good against scorbutic complaints in general... This plant is accounted a specific against the king's evel" (otherwise known as Tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis - a result of an infection in the lymph nodes).
Lastly for today, another plant with tiny flowers and a member of the Knotweed family, the Common Sorrel (Rumex acetosa).
This too, is a very useful medicinal plant in Culpepper's Herbal. He says of this plant "...It is prevalent in all hot diseases, to cool any inflammation and heat of blood in agues, pestilential or choleric, or sickness and fainting, arising from heat, and to refresh the overspent spirits with the violence of furious or fiery fits of agues; to quench thirst, and procure an appetite in fainting or decaying stomachs.... The leaves wrapt in a colewort leaf and roasted in the embers, and applied to a hard imposthume, botch, boil, or plague sore, doth both ripen and break it."

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