MEDICINAL PLANTS in Folk Tradition - Killerwall.net

330 Allium ampeloprasum var. babingtonii
Allium ampeloprasum Linnaeus var. babingtonii (Borrer) Syme
wild leek
south-western England, western Ireland
In the west of Ireland Allium ampeloprasum var. babingtonii shares the name
‘wild garlic’ with A. ursinum and has doubtless shared some of the uses of
that there, too. It has been identified botanically as the plant applied under
that name to a cattle disease in Donegal. 102
Allium oleraceum Linnaeus
field garlic
Europe to Caucasus; introduced into North America, Australia
In Devon the young shoots of both Allium oleraceum and A. vineale at one
time enjoyed a reputation among agricultural labourers of acting on the
kidneys to cure gravel 103 (a use found recorded only from Scotland in the
case of A. ursinum).
Allium vineale Linnaeus
wild onion, crow garlic
Europe, south-western Asia, North Africa; introduced into North
America, Australasia
In the New Forest in Hampshire, where Allium vineale largely replaces A.
ursinum, a woman claimed to have cured herself of tuberculosis by living on
a diet of this plant, bread, spring water and little else. 104 The dried bulbs
crushed to a powder and then worn on a flannel inside a shoe have also featured
as a cold cure in Warwickshire. 105
Narcissus Linnaeus
daffodil
As no records of folk uses of the wild daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus
Linnaeus, have been traced from those parts of England and Wales where,
alone in the British Isles, that is accepted as native, it can only have been garden
or naturalised examples of one or other of the numerous cultivated species
or hybrids that have been employed in Donegal as an emetic 106 and in
some unidentified part of Ireland made into hot fomentations to cure
colds, 107 uses which can hardly have had any lengthy history. The same applies
to a veterinary use of the Spanish daffodil, N. pseudonarcissus subsp. major,
recorded from Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides.
Ruscus aculeatus Linnaeus
butcher’s-broom
central and southern Europe, Azores