WORTS AND RUMOURS OF WORTS

Very occasionaly, as in every three or four years, someone will ask,
"What is a wort ?"  For example, St.John's Wort.
(My talking encyclopedia says it should rhyme with hurt.)

In their quaint English way with names, where Cholomondeley is pronounced Chumly and Featherstonehaugh is Fanshaw, the family name St.John's becomes Sinjins. But you, old chap, already know all that.

I tell them that it is just an old word for a plant other than those that already have good names; trees, shrubs, vines, vegetables, herbs, etcetera. Most commonly used where some medicinal benefit is claimed for the plant or at least a usefulness. I would cite Lungwort, Motherwort, Spleenwort, St.John's Wort, Soapwort, Toothwort and Woundwort.

This then would compel me to explain the concept of the "Doctrine of Signatures". The 'state of the art' medical practice 500 years ago as formulated and taught by the Swiss physician Paracelcus. The idea was that the Almighty had put a sign or 'signature' on certain plants to show how they were to be used for our benefit. Grey splotches on the leaves of Pulmonaria, the Lungwort, indicated a treatment for damaged lungs and all things pulmonary. I don't know what lungs look like but any splotches on mine would be more likely be brown. I'd rather not think of the health of my liver and which of two quite different plant forms I should use. Some publishers still don't know the difference as we can see from a recent book on Herbs. They describe the pretty woodland wildflower and then illustrate it with the non-flowering spore-producing weed of greenhouse benches and old pots that are both called Liverwort.

Visual indicators are not apparent to me in Motherwort, Soapwort and Woundwort but they apparently have earned the suffix for some claimed value or worth. Hold the leaf of St.John's Wort, Hypericum perforatum to the light and note the pinprick translucent holes that are imagined as the pores of our skin and only a fool would not realize the value of Hypericum for all things dermatological. I very foolishly thought that St.John's Wort combatted depression. Perhaps it is for those who are depressed at their wrinkles being a sign of aging.

The toxicity that results from consuming Hypericum perforatum (also called Klamath Weed) is an extreme sensitivity to ultra violet rays and a dangerous sunburn. If Sick Kids' Hospital staff don't know; let me tell them. Humans do not eat St.John's Wort. Pasturing cattle might. The white areas of a cow would be most sensitive to sunburning and be even worse on bare spots like the eyelids, muzzle and udders.

If this cooperage scouring list of plants 'known to be poisonous to humans' is the medical 'state of the art' in the 21st century; then I'm depressed.
The old word has been revived in the name of Harry Potter's school, Hogwart Academy although it is spelled a little differently.

One variety that will always be with us and never in short supply is the worrywort.