Profitable herb growing and collecting by Teetgen Ada B

Author:Teetgen, Ada B
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Botany, Medical
Publisher: London, "Country life" [etc.]; New York, C. Scribner's sons
Published: 1916-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

Dog's Mercury (Mercurialis

peremtis)

Seedling of Dog's Mercury, showing the clustered

male flowers. Open in April.

Filices

Of the numerous Ferns which grow in England, wild or cultivated, only one is " official," with a standing value in the drug market, although four others find a place in the lists of the herbalists and may sometimes meet with a demand. This is the Male Fern (Dryopteris Filix mas), common to our woods. It is often found, together with a tangle of other varieties, on banks where fine greensand, washed from higher ground by the rains of autumn, mixed with the heavy leaf-fall of the locality, has formed through the agency of the worms the light moist mould it requires. This Fern is a difficult one for the amateur to distinguish

from others very like it. Its fronds closely resemble those of the Lady Fern—a species without value in medicine. The latter, however, is a more delicate plant than the former, and cannot stand the lightest touch of frost, whereas Male Fern in a sheltered spot will sometimes remain green throughout the winter.

The distinction lies in the root or " rhizome " (underground stem), which also happens to be the commercial part of the plant, so that once Male Fern rhizome is recognised it will not be mistaken again. Unlike " Filix Fcemina," which has only two large wood " bundles" in the leaf base, "Filix Mas " has from seven of these to nine. It is a brown tangled scaly mass with persistent bases of stalks and root fibres. It should be dug in late autumn from well-grown plants, divested of roots, leaves and dead matter, and carefully dried right through. It yields an oleo-resinous extract which is one of the most valuable anthelmintics in the B.P. The English oil of Male Fern is more reliable than that which is imported from the Continent. The knowledge of the remedy had become lost until in 1775 it was repurchased by the French Government for 15,000 francs from a surgeon's widow who possessed the secret.

Male Fern is found abundantly in some of the Sussex ditches and hedgebanks, in Dorset, Devon, and many other counties. It grows luxuriously in moist, sheltered situations. Any rhizome grown or collected from wild plants just now will meet with a ready sale. The rhizome should not be kept for more than a year for medicinal purposes.

The rootstock of Adder's Tongue (Ophioglossum vul-gatum), a perennial found in moist meadows and pastures, yields a preparation known as the " green oil of charity " ; the Hart's Tongue (Scolopendrium vulgare) (whole herb used) was formerly one of the five great capillary herbs; the true Maiden-hair (Adiantum Capillus-Veneris) (a stranger in England except in the West country, and to be distinguished from Common Maidenhair Spleenwort by the shape of its fronds) is used in the " famous elegant French syrup" called " Capillaire," and given in pulmonary catarrh. The rhizome of Polypody (Polypodium vulgare) —a fern which grows plentifully on old walls and stumps of trees

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