FOUR SHIRES v COUNTRYFILE
COLTSFOOT rocks!
MEDICINE & FOLKLORE WITH maggie chaplin W
With the advent of spring, winter colds and bronchitis should have disappeared, but sometimes a cough can linger. The ancients had a solution – coltsfoot.
Bright yellow daisy-like coltsfoot flowers start to bloom in March, weeks before the leaves that give it its common name appear. With a powerful imagination you could see the shape of the dull green leaf as resembling a small hoof print. The plant’s Latin name on the other hand hints at its medicinal use. It is known botanically as Tussilago farfara and ‘tussilago’ means cough dispeller.
Ironically, the method prescribed for treatment of bronchitis by the scholars of Ancient Greece and Rome, and by many of their successors, was to smoke the leaves! Coltsfoot leaves form the basis of what is referred to as British Herb Tobacco and because it is nicotine free, some people still smoke it as an alternative to conventional cigarettes, although, of course, potentially harmful tars will still be produced.
The Roman academic Pliny recommended the use of both leaves and roots, but it’s now known that coltsfoot roots contain significant amounts of the toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids which can harm the liver and so should be avoided. Because of this potential hazard the German
for decades. It is widely available today, (including in Banbury), and along with the likes of candy canes and gobstoppers is sold as a ‘retro’ sweet.
hoof shaped coltsfoot leaves with web like down
government banned the sale of coltsfoot, but it was considered to be such a valuable herb for the treatment of respiratory complaints that efforts were made to develop a strain that contains none of these alkaloids. This variety is now available and is the only type from which extract of root should be used.
Sipping an infusion of fresh leaves was also suggested as an alternative way to treat a cough but a Lancashire confectioner came up with a much more palatable option in the form of coltsfoot rock, which has been manufactured exclusively in Oswaldthwistle
All parts of the plant were at one time valued. Coltsfoot leaves are covered with a white down that is thicker on the underside and is reminiscent of compacted spider’s web. In the days before matches this material was rubbed off the leaves, impregnated with saltpetre, dried and then used as a form of tinder. A country wine made from the flowers has been popular for centuries and apparently it’s not only goldfinches that use the tufts of silky hairs on the seed heads to line their nests. It’s reported that Highlanders also collected them to stuff pillows and mattresses. Coltsfoot plants must have been exceedingly common in the Highlands!
For children with a cough coltsfoot rock could be ideal, but for adults a modification of Pliny’s advice might work. In view of the possible harmful effects of smoking dried coltsfoot plants it may be as well to skip that part of his recommendation, but he did suggest that the patient should sip a little wine at regular intervals as well - it doesn’t even have to be coltsfoot wine.
Now that seems like a plan! v MARCH 2012 v FOUR SHIRES 45
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