A few days ago I came across Coltsfoot (tussilago farfara) snuggled in a gravel path on the canal path. I had always seen this plant on the tip of foundry rubbish in Willenhall where I lived for a time as a child. The flower comes up first and then the leaves. I had seen it as a cough medicine as well and Geoffrey Grigson in his study of wild flowers called it a demulcent. It was smoked as a herbal tobacco, apparently for the relief of a dry cough.
Why 'Coltsfoot'? because of the shape of the leaves. Grigson goes on to say that pectoral? beer, jelly and wine can be made of the leaves which are large and downy.
It has a plethora of local names, cow heave, dummy weed, foal-foot, tushalagies* and so forth.
.jpg) |
| Courtesy of: By Andreas Trepte - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3800718 |
https://www.ediblewildfood.com/coltsfoot.aspx
* whoops that caught my dictionary out!
Very similar to dandelion.
ReplyDeleteYes Joanne, looking at my wildflower book there are plenty of yellow flowered plants. The dandelion for instance has 200 microspecies to record.
DeleteWhy cow heave I wonder? It's always a pleasure to see it growing. Interesting that Coltsfood Rock is still being made and sold.
ReplyDeleteI think it was the first wild flower I thought about and asked the question where are the leaves? When you come to think of it Jennie, 'naked ladies' plants are around, colchicums and broomrape springs to mind.
ReplyDeleteGrigson gives a whole host of vernacular names of these local plants. Cow heave is Scottish, in Somerset for instance 'Son Afore the Father' describes flowering before leaf.
ReplyDeleteI have a copy of Culpeper's Herbal. Some of it is true, some of it is not. I particularly like the remedy of placing your head under a towel and breathing in the smoke from a bowl of burning tobacco as a cure for bronchitis. Not many people could afford it these days.
ReplyDeleteHerbal remedies were all the fashion one time Tom, nowadays they are not so popular. But the dry cough we have from Covid maybe needs some Coltsfoot medicine?
DeleteThat photograh has made my day Thelma - it is cold, cloudy and dismal outside but that photograph says Spring tome;
ReplyDeleteWhat made my day was going through the book 'Illustrated flora' by Marjorie Blamey. Also realising I need another lifetime to study plants.
Delete