Tag Archives: poisonous wildflowers

The Foxglove – of Fairytales, Myths & Medicine

20 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by in coastal walks, flower folklore, flower mythology, Nature, nature photography, The Wales Coast Path, wildflowers, Wildlife of the Wales Coast Path

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June is the month when elegant Foxgloves are at their best in many parts of Wales. I took most of the photographs in this post in Pembrokeshire where they adorn woodlands, roadsides and cliffs of the mainland and some of the offshore islands. Beautiful to behold, poisonous in the wrong hands yet life-saving when used for good, they have a long-held and fascinating place in our natural history.

Foxglove-Digitalis purpuraea

 

Foxglove–Digitalis purpurea – Welsh – Ffion or Maneg Ellyllyn — The Good People’s Glove

The graceful Foxglove is a downy biennial herb that thrives in acidic soils in a wide range of habitats. In their first year large downy basal leaves are produced, followed in their second year by impressive flower spikes from 3-6 feet (1-2m) tall. The plants die once they have seeded, but if the flowers are picked before they go to seed, the basal leaves will last another year and they will attempt to seed again.

 

Flowers open first at the base of the stem and graduates upwards

A stand of Foxgloves in a Pembrokeshire woodland

Three basic colours self-seed – pink, purple & white. They can come true to the parent plant where colour forms are isolated, but they cross-pollinate freely & many stands of foxgloves include all three shades.

In a Pembrokeshire woodland

 

In Wales the Foxglove  is a characteristic plant of early summer, thriving on acidic soil in the shady conditions of open woods, woodland clearings and hedge banks. But it also tolerates the open and exposed habitats of moorland and heath margins, sea-cliffs and rocky mountain slopes.

It may also  appear where  ground has been disturbed, such as in newly cleared woodland, or where the old vegetation has been burnt.

 

Pembrokeshire Coastal Path

ORIGIN OF THE NAME

There have been many suggestions for the derivation of the name “foxglove”. It is an ancient name and exists in a list of plants as old as the time of Edward III (King of England from 1327-1377). The prefix ‘fox‘ has most likely been commuted over time from “folks”, who to our fourteenth century ancestors were the fairies, but so-called as to speak of them  explicitly was believed to get their attention & cause them to do mischief.  ‘Glove‘ may have come from the Anglo-Saxon gliew, which was the name for a musical instrument consisting of many small bells. So, put the two together and you could make it ‘Fairy Bells’. However it came about, Foxglove is the English  common name we all know and love it by.

There appear to be two Welsh names for the Foxglove, one is Ffion, from which the popular Welsh female name is taken and the other Maneg Ellyllyn which translate as  “The Good People’s Glove.” Similar then to Folk’s Glove and its association with fairies.

In Gaelic they were Lus Mor, the Great Herb, for being the most magical of all herbs.

Plants that are widespread & medicinally potent invariably acquire a large number of folk-names, & the foxglove’s many names are a case study in our ancestor’s imaginations.

A whole host of alternative common names reflect the association with fairies Fairy Caps, Fairy Gloves, Fairy Thimbles, Fairy Herb, Fairybells, Fairy-fingers, Goblin Gloves, Fairy Petticoats, Fairyweed.

Another name, Dead Man’s Bells served to warn of the plant’s poisonous disposition.

The names Flopdock, Floppydock, Flop-a-Dock, Flapdock, Popdock, Flop-poppy, Flop-top, Cowflop, Gooseflops, Rabbit’s Flowers or Bunny Rabbits all allude to the foxglove’s large soft downy leaves.

Mythology and legends

One story has it that fairies would hide themselves inside the flowers. Mischievous children, wanting to hear fairy thunder, would hold one of the flower bell then strike the other end on their hand. The poor fairy, rightly upset and probably rather cross, would make a snapping sound, a clap of fairy thunder, while she escaped from her retreat.

Another Welsh legend explains why foxgloves bend and sway so gracefully. It has nothing to do with the wind, but that as the flower is sacred to the fairies, it has the power of recognising them, and indeed all spiritual beings who pass by, and that it bows in deference to them as they waft along.

Foxgloves supposedly bowed to Fairies

IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

At least two great poets, Wordsworth and Tennyson were moved to immortalise the foxglove in words; the former clearly aware of  the deadly qualities of the plant. In The Borderers, a tragedy, a woman describes a dream she had:

“My poor Babe
Was crying, as I thought, crying for bread
When I had none to give him; whereupon,
I put a slip of foxglove in his hand,
Which pleased him so, that he was hushed at once:
When, into one of those same spotted bells
A bee came darting, which the Child with joy
Imprisoned there, & held it to his ear,
And suddenly grew black, as he would die.”

Sounds more like a nightmare to me!

Tennyson names the flower in the poem ‘In Memoriam’ –

” …. Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire…”

and also in ‘The Two Voices’ –

”  ….The foxglove cluster dappled bells …”

MODERN MEDICINAL USES

Foxglove-digitalis purpurea. A plant that is beautiful on the outside but toxic at its heart. All parts of the plant are poisonous.

Foxglove is the source of  digitalis, derived from several cardiac glycosides produced by the plant, and widely used as a heart medication. It is used to increase cardiac contractility and as an antiarrhythmic agent to control the heart rate, particularly in individuals affected by irregular (and often fast) atrial fibrillation and especially if they have been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Which basically translates to it regulates the heartbeat.

The use of Digitalis purpurea extract containing cardiac glycosides for the treatment of heart conditions was first described in English language medical literature by William Withering, in 1785, which is considered the beginning of modern therapeutics.

With careful usage and expert pharmaceutical  guidance, doctors have subsequently used digitalis and saved thousands of lives, but it is at the same time a dangerously toxic plant. Used wrongly it can cause heart palpitations, delirium, hallucinations, vomiting, & possibly death.

TRADITIONAL, FOLK & HERBAL MEDICINE

Modern-day herbalists have largely abandoned the use of digitalis because of its narrow therapeutic index and the difficulty of determining the amount of active drug in herbal preparations. Once the usefulness of digitalis in regulating the human pulse was understood, it was employed for a variety of purposes, including the treatment of epilepsy and other seizure disorders, which are now considered to be inappropriate treatments.

The Doctrine of Signatures

The openings of the bells were thought to resemble an open animal’s mouth

Foxglove flowers were supposed to look like an animal’s open mouth. Within the doctrine of signatures this meant it must have some medicinal value in treatment of injuries of the mouth & throat. The speckles in the mouth of the flower were, according to the Doctrine symbolic of inflammation of the throat. Another array of folk-names reflect foxglove’s association with the mouth: Throatwort, Rabbit’s Mouth, Bunny Mouths, Tiger’s Mouth, Duck’s Mouth, Gap-Mouth, & Dragon’s Mouth.

Another, less charming name of Scabbit Dock came about as in Culpepper’s day Foxglove was used in an ointment or shampoo for treating impetigo or “scabby head”.

Midwifery

An association with midwifery probably gave rise to the names Granny’s Gloves or Granny’s Bonnets, & Witch’s or Witches’ Gloves. Witches & grannies, or at least midwives & other herbal practitioners, had many uses for this plant. Dr William Withering, the aforementioned man credited with discovering digitalis as a heart remedy circa 1775, apparently learned of its potency from an unnamed midwife.

September – The dried seedhead of a Foxglove still stands-Conwy Mountain

 

A trip to Pembrokeshire:Part 2: Flowers in the rain

15 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in Nature, nature of woodlands, nature photography, wildflowers

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As we surveyed the ash tree the tree surgeon arrived and quickly assessed the work involved in removing the obstruction, estimating that it would take him about two hours to clear. The rain and wind persisted, but had eased at that point, so as we had piled on waterproofs anyway, we wandered back towards the house stopping to see how the saturated wildflowers had fared.

At this time of year Red Campion-Silene dioica is a familiar sight on the banks of Welsh lanes, along the roadsides and on woodland edges. Its flowering season is quite a lengthy one, beginning in May when it accompanies bluebells and continuing on through the summer and into September. Individually, the plants are rather straggly and untidy, but beautiful en masse at the peak of  its blooming when it can colour large swathes of ground.

Red campion – Silene dioica

Foxgloves typify June in most parts of Wales, appearing in a wide variety of habitats from the lanes and woodlands to clifftops and mountains. This morning some of the more exposed blooms were  looking a little the worse for wear in the aftermath of their night’s battering, but even those with bent stems still managed to look graceful and elegant beaded with droplets of rain.

Foxglove bent by the wind & rain

Cow Parsley flowerheads were drenched, but the drooping buds, each adorned with a droplet of water at their tips looked so pretty, like miniature chandeliers adorned with clear crystal beads. The presence of the little slug on the flowerhead in my photograph spoils that metaphor slightly, but it was quite attractive in its own way.

Cow parsley being investigated by a small brown slug

In the hedgerow I came across a few flowering trusses of purple Woody Nightshade, or Bittersweet – Solanum dulcamara. The plant stems grow long, but are not equipped with any climbing aids such as hooks, nor do they twine, they simply leans on other plants for support. A member of the potato family, the plant’s purple flowers with yellow centres are attractive, but I grew up in fear of it, being strongly warned to stay well away from it as it was very poisonous; in fact we knew it as deadly nightshade, although that name really applies to another member of the family, Belladonna.

The attractive, but potentially poisonous flowers of woody nightshade, alternatively named or bittersweet

There were a surprising number of insects around, particularly flies of various kinds. I noticed quite a few of the species in the photograph below, most sitting on leaves rather than flying around and wondered if they were sucking up tiny droplets of water from their surfaces. I’m not sure what they are, but think they may be dung flies; if anyone knows I’d love to know for sure.

There were a lot of these flies sitting around on various leaves, this one on the reverse, or stinging side of a nettle leaf. With its proboscis extended down to the leaf’s surface, was it drinking?

The Dog Roses are spectacular this year with shrubs smothered with  pink-flushed blooms; the after-effects of their being subjected to the heavy rain will probably be apparent in a day or two’s time, but at the moment they are gorgeous.

Dog Rose-Rosa canina

Woodland plants may be pungent, prickly and even poisonous

03 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in nature of woodlands, nature photography, woodlands

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Spring is progressing rapidly and now at the end of April, the great majority of  woodland plants have come into flower, racing to achieve the maximum amount of light possible before the leaf canopy thickens and blots it out. In a more ‘normal’ year, they would reach their peak in May in southern England and a little later further north, but this year everything seems to be happening that bit earlier.

In local woodlands Ramsons, or wild Garlic has been showing blooms for several weeks now and is fast approaching its flowering peak. A wild relative of chives, all parts of the plant have a characteristic garlic or onion scent, and where there are masses of them their pungent scent fills the air; you can often smell their presence before seeing them.

Ramsons, Wild Garlic – Alium ursinum -Fairy Glen, Old Colwyn

Ramsons, Wild Garlic – Allium ursinum

Other common names include  buckrams, wild garlic, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek, and bear’s garlic

The flower heads are enclosed within a papery two-lobed spathe

Native to Europe and Asia, Ramsons may be found growing  in deciduous woodlands with moist soils, preferring slightly acidic conditions. It is a perennial herb, growing from a narrow white bulb that produces two or three oval-elliptic leaves with pointed tips and long stalks that twist through 180 degrees. The leaves are similar to those of the lily of the valley and where the two plants are known to grow together, care must be taken not to confuse them should you be picking them to eat; those of the lily of the valley are highly poisonous.

A Ramsons flower visited by a tiny hoverfly. The flower-heads consist of six to twenty white star-like flowers held in dense flat-topped umbels atop a bare triangular scape (stem). Each flower is 16-20mm across and has six stamens.

Ramsons leaves are edible and are fashionable currently as ‘foraged food’; they have been traditionally used as an addition to a green salad,  boiled as a vegetable, added to soup, or as an ingredient for pestoin lieu of basil.  The bulbs and flowers are also very tasty.

A pretty clump of Bluebells – hyacintha non-scripta

A bluebell is visited by a small hoverfly

Bluebells are probably the most characteristic of all woodland flowers. The magnificent carpet of blue its massed blooms  produce, sometimes spreading throughout an entire woodland is a glorious spectacle. It epitomises spring woodlands, but is also a special feature of the British Isles and a rarity over most of continental Europe, either because the winters are too cold or the summers are too hot and dry.

The flowers are indisputably beautiful and release a lovely perfume, but the small bulbs they spring from are rather poisonous if eaten. Traditional medicinal uses of the bulb are based upon their diuretic and styptic properties. The toxic substances they contain also made them useful for a more unusual and practical purpose, as a source of glue used in bookbinding; apparently the toxins discouraged silverfish from eating them.  The toxicity may also be the origin of the superstitious belief that anyone who wanders into a ring of bluebells will fall under fairy enchantment and die soon after. Now I must confess that last little snippet of superstition was passed down in country areas well into my childhood- we lived on the edge of a wood, part of which was (happily still is) carpeted with bluebells in May and I spent many happy hours wandering through them. I was always very careful to make sure there were none growing in a ring.

Shrubs and bushes form the under-story level below the trees – they are woody but not normally tall enough to reach the woodland canopy. The blackthorn and hawthorn are two closely related shrubs, both members of the rose family and both contributing a great deal to our countryside. The blackthorn is usually the first of the two to flower and is familiar for its mass of white flowers produced in early spring before the leaves appear and for the purple sloes in autumn.

Sloe, Blackthorn – Prunus spinosa

The Blackthorn or sloe – Prunus spinosa  is native to Europe, western Asia, and locally in northwest Africa. It is also locally naturalised in New Zealand and eastern North America.

It  is a deciduous large shrub or small tree growing to 5 m tall, with blackish bark and dense, stiff, spiny branches. The shrub protects itself from animal consumption with particularly long and very tough thorns, which has led to a long traditional use as boundary hedging around fields in Northern Europe and Britain, to contain animals.

The flowers are 1.5 cm diameter, with five creamy-white petals; they are produced shortly before the leaves in early spring, and are hermaphroditic and insect-pollinated.

The leaves are oval, 2 – 4.5cm long and 1.2-2cm across, with a serrated margin.

Blackthorn is the larval food plant of several butterflies, including the Black Hairstreak (Strymondia pruni), which feeds on both the leaf buds and mature leaves of the shrub. This butterfly is a rare species in Britain, restricted only to ‘a narrow belt of mature woodland areas, between Oxford and Peterborough.’  Diversifying a little, there’s a fascinating account of one man’s quest to find this butterfly, together with the rest of our British species in a book I have in my collection titled ‘The Butterfly Isles – A Summer in Search of our Emperors and Admirals’, written by Patrick Barkham. I’d love to know if anyone else has read it; I really enjoyed it, but it seems to have had mixed reviews.

Back to the plants. I’ve mentioned Dog’s Mercury in an earlier post, but didn’t say anything about it. It is actually quite an interesting one as its a bit of a beast appearing alongside the host of beauties featuring in our woodlands at this time of year.

To begin with the name, a  ‘dog’s’ plant is traditionally one with no medicinal uses and it may have obtained this name to contrast it with annual mercury which was used in cleansing enemas. Other slightly less common names are ‘Adder’s Meat’ and ‘Lasting Mercury’. The Mercurialis is open to some debate, although most sources I have come across favour Pliny who said the plant is named after Mercury, the messenger of the gods, who discovered it. The word ‘mercury’ itself is, however, said to be related to ‘merx’ meaning ‘wares’. With its alleged property of being able to determine the sex of an unborn child, it may be that this plant was traded and was ‘merx’.

29/4/12 – Dog’s mercury is fully grown now and flowering

The plant is poisonous; it contains methylamine, trimethylamine, saponins and a volatile oil. This would give it  emetic and purgative properties, meaning consumption would most probably lead to nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. Larger doses cause lethargy, jaundice, painful urination (apparently by making the urine acid) and coma before death. Reported instances of poisoning are few, perhaps because the plant is not particularly attractive and also because it had no tradition of medicinal use.

Pretty pink-flowered Herb Robert – geranium robertianum

Another of my all-time favourite little woodland plants is also beginning to appear, the pretty delicate and highly aromatic little Herb Robert. It is a common species of cranesbill in Europe, Asia, North America, and North Africa, and in Britain it is by no means confined to woodlands and may turn up anywhere it can get a hold, even on stony seashores.

The pungent aroma of the leaves is said to act as an insect deterrent and it does seem to be that no insect pest bothers it;  it has traditionally been used in bedding for animals for that reason.

Herb Robert is known to have many medicinal qualities, it is astringent, antibiotic, antiviral, styptic, tonic, diuretic, digestive, sedative and antioxidant. Of these properties, the main action of the herb is regarded to be astringent, which gives it the ability to treat external conditions such as bruises and skin irritations. From medieval times the herb has been applied as a compress to stop bleeding and heal wounds and because of its astringency it is also used to treat diarrhoea.