“Trudging along a dusty country road at high noon of a July day, with the sun blazing down on the weed-filled roadsides:” not a particularly interesting nor fascinating picture, is it? But there was a delightful breeze and the roadsides were crowded with lush growth that brought wrath to the heart of the farmer, but delight to the heart of the homoeopathic layman who was wandering in search of specimens.
To those born of New England farming stock, a weed is uncompromisingly a weed and it takes education and strenuous cultivation of the seeing eye to evaluate it properly and place it correctly in the homoeopathic materia medica; but to one whose eyes have been opened the lowliest weeds of the field and road- sides have a new value from the high place of usefulness which they hold in the healing of the aches and pains and illness from which we suffer.
When the idea first occurred to me to make a collection of plants used in the preparation of the homoeopathic materia medica it seemed a simple matter. There are some common plants with which we have a speaking acquaintance, as it were; and as an outstanding beginning–or one might say an upstanding beginning- we recognize the Rumex crispus, that straight and sturdy soldier who guards our roads and waste places, and often our fields, from invasion by his own vigorous army.
No one who travels the summer roads can fail to see the tall candles of Verbascum thapsus rising from a rosette of gray-green velvet leaves, to the height of a tall man in many instances, along the cut banks bordering new-made roads or on sandy hillsides, the little yellow flowers like smoldering lights creeping up the tall stem in twos and threes, never lighting all at once. These stems have served as candles to light many an ancient gathering, for was it not the Romans who dipped them in tallow to burn as torches?.
However, like most subjects the more one looks into it the more material one finds, and the materia medica has an astonishing number of representatives in the northeastern corner of the United States of America known as New England. It is now the middle of July. My search began with the first flowers of spring, the saxifraga and Dicentra canadensis (Corydalis); yet with the honest intention not to let one plant pass the blooming season without securing a good specimen, many have come and gone without representation, and still the pile of specimens towers higher and higher.
The wild flowers are easily noticed and secured, for their beauty insures them attention; but the lowly weeds that are unnoticed except as pests are very apt to pass their blooming season before they are noticed. Then, too, many of these lowly friends have found life reduced to such harsh terms that their blooms are reduced to the barest, necessities for the existence of the species. Here you will find no showy flowers with bright petals and fragrant scent; bare necessities with no time for beauty, so great is their economic pressure.
Botanists list chickweed (Stellaria media) as the most common weed the earth around, for it blossoms under the Arctic snows as well as covering Europe and Asia. They name as the second most common weed the shepherds purse (Thlaspi bursa pastoris). It is true that these plants are not native to this country; like countless other plants they have come as immigrants and have adapted themselves so completely that it is hard to trace their habits to another land.
No gardener lives who has not fought hand to hand with these small, insignificant but amazingly persistent weeds; but their value in the hands of the homoeopathic prescriber cannot be estimated. Some idea of the persistence of Nature in perpetuating her children is seen from the fact that in many instances plants put into the press after the plant has ceased to bloom continue to ripen their seeds and even disperse them in the press; they will ripen from the time the petals fall, perfecting and developing their seedpods to fruition. This was true of many excellent specimens, among them the Thlaspi bursa pastoris. To perpetuate under the most trying and unlikely conditions has earned it its place as the worlds second greatest weed.
But let us wander along this dusty and perhaps uninteresting road. It lay along the flat top of a considerable hill overlooking the junction of the Housatonic and Naugatuck Rivers in southern Connecticut, and from the southern end of the hill one might see Long Island Sound. The banks being slightly higher than the road, there was here no view for some little distance; the road was a typical country road, stony and dusty, and to keep down the dust a dressing of oil had been applied. Altogether, it was not an attractive road to walk on just there; its fascination lay in the abundance of interesting plants crowding upon it from both sides.
The fence corners were filled with Prunus virginiana in green fruit. Rhus toxicodendron, with its beautiful glossy leaves, draped its poisonous lengths indiscriminately over fences, trees and earth, creeping through the grass to the very edge of the road. Dainty tracings of Ampilopsis quinquefolium on rough gray rocks gave them unsuspected beauty.
The low-growing shrubby Apocyanum androsemifolium rang its tiny pink bells daintily, giving no hint of the deadliness of the little blossoms, for the little flies crave the sweet sticky fluid in the bloom, and this craving is their death, for it seals over them and they die where they touch, not for the nourishment of the plant but as a punishment for venturing to trespass.
The grassy places were not without interest. Stray timothy grass has wandered from its legitimate place in the meadow, where it holds first place as the worlds best hay grass; but it has found, as Phleum pratense, a place in the armamentarium of the homoeopathic physician.
As the road winds down hill we see bunches of Lady-at-the- Gate, to call her by one of her provincial names, or Bouncing Bet, as she is better known. Perhaps Sweet Arcady is the daintiest name we have to offer, in recognition of the fragrance emanating from her phlox-like blossom; yet Saponaria officinalis has served other purposes than those expected of garden flowers, for she is a runaway from the gardens of the old world. The early settlers, faced with the problem of keeping clean in spite of great odds, kept bunches of Saponaria by the gate or door, which they could pluck and use in washing. Not for nothing was she known as soapwort, for the sap which was released in water did duty for a long time before the soft soap was ready for use.
Myrica, that sweet-smelling shrub, lined the fences and sturdily stepped forward around the rocks. Barren sandy soil has no terrors for the Myrica carolinensis, for the bayberry finds its best habitat sandy soil, whether on the shore or far inland. It is beloved because of the spicy pungency of the whole plant; and the little gray berries which will cling close to the stem a little later in the season are sought for their thin coating of wax which is melted for the treasured bayberry candles so dear to the lovers of the old ways.
Ranunculus is still in bloom; probably not the bulbosus now, but another brother of this large family. They have the same golden cups held to the sun to be filled with molten sunshine, but their leaves vary, some being sharply angled while others have the angles rounded in a gentler manner. Other yellow blooms in which we take an interest are the St. Johnswort family, with their yellow whorl of petals. Hypericum perfoliatum is a little past the high tide of its bloom now, but many blossoms are still opening.
This, too, is an immigrant from the other side of the water, and as sturdy as such wanderers must be to adapt themselves to such varying conditions. It seems strange to see this plant growing in the clefts of the rock. Its usual habitat is sandy soil, yet it may be seen on up-tilted rocks, growing at right angles to the rock itself, no matter what the angle of the rock may be. To see the straight stem of this plant carrying the frowsy yellow head rigidly at right angles to its sharply sloping foundation is to think of a person of overweening dignity in a most undignified position.
Rumex crispus, the curly dock, and his small brother, Rumex acetosella, whom the children know and love as sheep sorrel, are both a little ragged now, but still attending to the ripening of the remainder of their seeds. At intervals there arise the greyish white heads of Achillea millefolium, looking like myriad mummified blooms. The leaves, cut into fine grey-green threads, do not look quite alive, as do the other neighbors; but brush the plant and there will arise the strong, clean, pungent smell that is so characteristic of the plant.
Yarrow seems like a weary pilgrim, keeping his head erect no matter how hot and stony the soil; but do not waste your sympathy. Under the ground he is sending out spicy roots which will send up at intervals a host of other plants, and they in their turn will spread and spread until a whole fine meadow must be plowed up to get rid of this weed so pernicious to the farmer. That he is an individuality is evidenced by the many names given him through countless generations and from many countries: Old Man; Nosebleed; Old Mans Pepper.
