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 | Adders Tongue Other Names: Serpent's Tongue. Dog's Tooth Violet. Yellow Snowdrop.
Botanical Name: Erythronium Americanum
Family: N.O. Liliaceae |
Description: |
The plant, which is quite smooth, grows from a small, slender, ovoid, fawn-coloured corm, 1/3 to 1 inch long which is quite deeply buried in the soil and is of solid, firm consistence and white and starchy internally.
The stem is slender, a few inches high, and bears near the ground, on footstalks 2 to 3 inches long, a pair of oblong, dark-green, purplish-blotched leaves, the blades about 2 1/2 inches long and 1 inch wide, minutely wrinkled, with parallel, longitudinal veins. The stem terminates in a handsome, large, pendulous, lily-like flower, an inch across, with the perianth divisions strongly recurved, bright yellow in colour, often tinged with purple and finely dotted within at the base, and with six stamens. It flowers in the latter part of April and early in May. |
Habitat: |
Eastern United States of America, from New Brunswick to Florida, and westwards to Ontario and Arkansas.
The American Dog's Tooth Violet or Adder's Tongue, Erythronium Americanum (Ker Gawl), is a very beautiful early spring flower of the Eastern United States of America, belonging to the Lily family. It grows in damp, open woodlands from New Brunswick to Florida and westwards to Ontario and Arkansas. |
Medicinal Usage: |
The constituents of the plant have not yet been analysed. The fresh leaves and corm, and to a lesser degree the rest of the plant, are emetic.
The fresh leaves having emollient and anti-scrofulous properties are mostly used in the form of a stimulating poultice, applied to swellings, tumours and scrofulous ulcers.
The infusion is taken internally in wineglassful doses. It is reputed of use in dropsy, hiccough and vomiting.
The recent bulbs have been used as a substitute for colchicum. They are emetic in doses of 25 to 30 grains. |
Ancient Lore: |
ADDER'S TONGUE (OPHIOGLOSSUM VULGATUM)
It is given with good success unto those that are troubled with casting, vomiting, or bleeding at the mouth and nose, or otherwise downwards.
This herb has but one leaf which grows with the stalk a finger's length above the ground. Its appearance resembles the tongue of an adder serpent.
Where to find it: It grows in moist meadows. Flowering time: It flowers not, being a fern, but it appears in mid to late spring. It quickly perishes in warm weather.
Astrology: It is under the dominion of the Moon and Cancer, and therefore, if the weakness of the retentive faculty be caused by an evil influence in any part of the body governed by the Moon, or under the dominion of cancer, this herb cures it by sympathy. It cures these diseases after specified, in any part of the body under the influence of Saturn, by antipathy.
Medicinal virtues: The juice of the leaves drank with the distilled water of Horsetail, is a singular remedy of all manner of wounds in the breasts, bowels or other parts of the body. The said juice given in the distilled water of oaken buds, is very good for women who have their usual courses, or whites flowing down too abundantly. It helps sore eyes. Of the leaves infused or boiled in oil, omphacine, or unripe olives, set in the sun for certain days, or the green leaves sufficiently boiled in the said oil, is made an excellent green balsam, not only for green and fresh wounds, but also for old and inveterate ulcers. It also stayeth and refresheth all inflammations that arise upon pains by hurts and wounds.
Modern uses: Its main use is as a remedy for wounds, but it is not in general use these days. More popular today is the homoeopathic medicine Arnica which is taken for shock in drop doses or in tablet form, or St John's Wort which has an affinity for nerve endings and will alleviate pain. The tincture is available from herbalists. Adder's Tongue can be infused in oil to make an application for burns, ulcers and cuts. The infusion - 1 OZ (28 g) dried herbs to 1 pt (568 ml) of boiling water - is taken in doses Of 2 fl OZ (56 ml). |
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