|
|
 | Speedwell Other Names:
Botanical Name: Veronica officinalis
Family: N.O. Scrophulariaceae |
Description: |
The plant is a perennial, of a prostrate habit, with ascending branches, bearing erect, spike-like clusters of blue flowers, the stems 3 to 18 inches long, varying very much in length according to soil. The leaves are opposite, shortly stalked, generally about an inch long, oval and attenuated into their foot-stalks, their margins finely toothed. The flowers are in dense, axillary, manyflowered racemes, 1 1/2 to 6 inches long, the individual flowers nearly stalkless on the main flower-stalk, their corollas only 1/6 inch across, pale blue with dark blue stripes and bearing two stamens with a very long style. The capsule is inversely heart-shaped and notched, longer than the oblong, narrow sepals. The plant is of a dull green and is generally slightly hairy, having short hairs, sometimes smooth.
The fresh herb is faintly aromatic. After drying, it is inodorous. It has a bitterish, warm, and somewhat astringent taste. |
Habitat: |
The Common Speedwell is a native of the Old World, but is abundantly naturalized in the eastern United States, where it grows in open, grassy places.
In this country, it is generally found on heaths, moors, dry hedgebanks and in coppices, where it is very common and generally distributed |
Constituents: |
Enz found a bitter principle, soluble in water and alcohol, but scarcely so in ether, and precipitated by the salts of lead, but not by tannic acid; an acrid principle; red colouring matter, a variety of tannic acid, producing a green colour with ferric salts; a crystallizable, fatty acid, with malic, tartaric, citric, acetic and lactic acids; mannite; a soft, dark green bitter resin.
Mayer, of New York (in 1863), found evidences of an alkaloid and of a saponaceous principle. Vintilesco (1910) found a glucoside both in this species and in Veronica chamaedrys. |
Medicinal Usage: |
This species of Veronica retained a place among our recognized remedies until a comparatively late period, and is still employed in herbal medicine.
Its leaves possess astringency and bitterness.
Among the Welsh peasantry, great virtues are attributed to the Speedwell. The plant has diaphoretic, alterative, diuretic, expectorant and tonic properties, and was formerly employed in pectoral and nephritic complaints, haemorrhages, diseases of the skin and in the treatment of wounds. Modern herbalists still consider that an infusion of the dried plant is useful in coughs, catarrh, etc., and is a simple and effective remedy in skin diseases. |
Ancient Lore: |
SPEEDWELL, FLUELLEIN, LLUELLIN, or PAUL'S BETONY VERONICA OFFICINALIS
Fluellein is a vulnerary plant, and accounted good for fluxes and haemorrhages of all sorts. A common, wild perennial plant with a creeping stem. The flowers, somewhat like Snapdragons, have an upper jaw of yellow and the lower of purple. Commonly known as Heath Speedwell.
Where to find it: Woodland, pastures, heaths and moors.
Flowering time: Early to midsummer.
Astrology: It is a lunar herb.
Medicinal virtues: The bruised leaves applied with Barley-meal to watering eyes does help them. It also helps fluxes of blood, or humours, as the lax, bloody flux, women's courses, and stay all manner of bleeding at nose or mouth. It cleanses and heals all foul or old ulcers and fretting or spreading cankers.
Modern uses: Speedwell is an expectorant and will relieve bronchitis, whooping cough and catarrh. An infusion of the dried plant is taken in wineglassful doses. It was once used as a substitute for ordinary tea, but its popularity has waned over the years. |
|
|