Roots, Badgers and Leaves

It was such a dark, dismal day yesterday, and such a nasty storm last night, I thought we could do with something merry and bright, so I thought Elecampane.  Here is a gorgeous photo Aimo took in Scotland:

Another Beautiful Photo by Aimo

where you can see a most impressive stand of elecampane in a garden at Poolewe.  We have elecampane in the garden at Aimo's House, but it never looks anything like this.

Mrs Grieve has several pages about elecampane.  It's synonyms are: Scabwort, Elf-Dock (Elf-Doc in Danish), Wild Sunflower, Horseheal and Velvet Dock (Miss Aimson got some velvet docs for her birthday).  It's habitat: it is found widely distributed throughout England, though can scarcely be termed common.  This is a bit of a first for the garden at Aimo's House, where, as you know, most things are common.  Actually it was after seeing the fine display of elecampane in Poolewe that I realised how badly the elecampane was doing here.  Culpepper says elecampane "groweth in moist grounds and shadowy places", which makes strange it can't get on here, as you don't get much more moist and shadowy than the garden at Aimo's House.  Culpepper also says that elecampane was probably more common in elder times, which is a bit of a comfort to know that you can get less common.

An interesting point in botanical terms is that the leaves on the stem are short, broad and stem-clasping.  That would be a good word to add to the discussion on clipping, clept and cleppy (see post Cleppy Bells and Clipping the Church).

Elecampane has been used as a medicine and as a condiment since ancient times.  Horace apparently quipped that Romans, after dining too richly would pine for turnips and elecampane.  That sounds a bit far-fetched to me, as I can't imagine anyone pining for turnips; and as a witticism it's hardly Oscar Wilde (his birthday yesterday Miss Aimson informs me).  Pliny tells us that Julia Augustus let no day pass without eating some roots of elecampane, considered to help digestion and cause mirth.  I'm with Julia Augustus, whoever she might be, that anything that increases mirth is a good thing.  Finally Galen stated that elecampane "is good for passions of the hucklebone called sciatica".  I'm not quite sure where my hucklebone is, but I'm pretty sure soothing it would be a good thing too.

So, to sum up, elecampane is just the ticket if you're troubled with: a cold windy stomach, shortness of breath, shortness of mirth, cramps, gout, sciatica, wheezing in the lungs, TB, snakebite, and made into an ointment with hog's suet or oil of trotters (that's a recipe you don't often see these days) is a "most effective remedy for scabs or itch in young or old."  Maybe we should offer badgers elecampane sweets, it may cure their TB.  At the very least they could help with scabs and itches, windy stomachs, increase their mirth and soothe their hucklebones, which can't be a bad thing.