Sow-Thistle, Mountain
Botanical: Sonchus alpinus (LINN.)
Family: N.O. Compositæ
Synonym: Blue Sow-Thistle.
Parts Used: Milky juice, leaves.
The Blue or Mountain Sow-Thistle, a tall, handsome plant with very large blue flowers, but also very rare in these islands (it grows on the Clova Mountains), has been used as a salad in Lapland, the young shoots being stripped of their skin and eaten raw, but Linnæus informs us that it is somewhat bitter and unpalatable.
- Of the Siberian Sow-Thistle (Sonchus Tartaricus), Anne Pratt, in Flowers and Their Associations (1840) says:
- 'This plant during that clear weather which is generally favourable to flowers, never uncloses; but let a thick mist overspread the atmosphere or a cloud arise large enough to drive home the Honey Bee, and it will soon unfold its light blue blossoms.'
Medicinal Action and Uses
- Culpepper considers that the Sow-Thistles possess great medicinal virtues, which lie chiefly in the milky juice. He tells us:
- 'They are cooling and somewhat binding, and are very fit to cool a hot stomach and ease the pain thereof. . . . The milk that is taken from the stalks when they are broken, given in drink, is very beneficial to those that are short-winded and have a wheezing.'
- He goes on to inform us, on the authority of Pliny, that they are efficacious against gravel, and that a decoction of the leaves and stalks is good for nursing mothers; that the juice or distilled water is good 'for all inflammation, wheals and eruptions, also for haemorrhoids.' Also that:
- 'the juice is useful in deafness, either from accidental stoppage, gout or old age. Four spoonsful of the juice of the leaves, two of salad oil, and one teaspoonful of salt, shake the whole well together and put some on cotton dipped in this composition into the ears and you may reasonably expect a good degree of recovery.'
- Again, that:
- 'the juice boiled or thoroughly heated in a little oil of bitter almonds in the peel of a pomegranite and dropped into the ears is a sure remedy for deafness.'
Finally, he informs us that the juice 'is wonderfully efficacious for women to wash their faces with to clear the skin and give it lustre.'
- Another old herbalist also says:
- 'The leaves are to be used fresh gathered; a strong infusion of them works by urine and opens obstructions. Some eat them in salads, but the infusion has more power.'
The whole plant has stiff spines on the leaf margin, and the seeds and roots are used in homœopathic medicine.
The milky juice of all the Sow-Thistles is an excellent cosmetic. The leaves are said to cure hares of madness.
See:
HAWKWEED, WALL
HAWKWEED, WOOD
HAWKWEED, MOUSE-EAR
OX-TONGUE
