Читать книгу The Book of Herbs - Rosalind Northcote - Страница 11

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So did the maidens with their various flowers

Deck up their windows, and make neat their bowers;

Using such cunning as they did dispose

The ruddy piny (peony) with the lighter rose,

The monkshood with the bugloss, and entwine The white, the blue, the flesh-like columbine With pinks, sweet williams.

Britannia’s Pastorals, Book II.—W. Browne.

A spiny stem of bugloss flowers,

Deep blue upon the outer towers.

Winchester Castle.—N. Hopper.

Gerarde put Bugloss in one chapter, and Alkanet or Wild Bugloss in another, but nowadays Bugloss or Alkanet are names for the same plant, Anchusa officinalis. The drawings of his Bugloss resemble our Alkanet much more closely than they do any other plant called Bugloss, such as Lycopsis arvensis, small Bugloss, or Echium vulgare, Viper’s Bugloss. The old herbalists, however, were most confusing on the subject. They apply the name Bugloss alternately to Borago officinalis and to different varieties of Anchusa, and then speak of Buglossum as if it were a different species! Evelyn describes it as being “in nature much like Borage but something more astringent,” and recommends the flowers of both as a conserve, for they are “greatly restorative.” As Hogg says that Anchusa officinalis had formerly “a great reputation as a cordial,” Evelyn’s description applies to this plant; we may take it that this is the Bugloss he was thinking of. It is a good plant for a “wild garden,” but has a great tendency to spread. I have found it growing wild in Cornwall. Gerarde tells us that the roots of Anchusa Tinctoria were used to colour waters, syrups, and jellies, and then follows a line of scandal—“The gentlewomen of France doe paint their faces with these roots, as it is said.” Rouge is still made from Alkanet.