HERB - Wormwood

[Rauthulfr]

At 09:48 AM 3/26/00 -0600, you wrote:
>Rauthulfr, where does the idea of "official or recognized medicinal 
>member..." come from?  In general, families or genera are named for a 
>recognizeable member as in "Sunflower Family" simply because people know 
>sunflowers. But we could call it "the Povertyweed Family".  Technically 
>sunflower is just another member of the family. the same logically applies
>to a genus--botanically they are all equals. But that's botanically--does 
>it work differently in some related field?

Good points and comments, Agnes!
The sense of "official" is often appended as "officinalis" to the species 
which has generally been listed in the Matera Medica.

One of the challenges we face with regard to taxonomy in general within our 
area is that our sources tend to come from a variety of different areas and 
periods.  Thus the "scientific" name given in a text from the turn of the 
century might give us "Mandragora officinalis" or it might give us "Atropa 
mandragora."  Some modern sources might give "Mandragora vernal is."  Some 
the ancient writers tended to view the spring flowing species as the male 
and the autumn flowering as the female.  Although more commonly in ancient 
and in much of the literature there is no distinction between the spring 
flowering and the autumn flowering mandrake.  Sometimes they seem to be 
seen as a sub-species.

When reading the identification appended to a text by an editor at the turn 
of the century it can be even more challenging.  For example, there are 
passages in Pliny the Elder in which it is not possible to tell if by 
"Atropa" he is referring to Mandrake, or Deadly nightshade since both have 
similar physiological effects if taken internally.  So the identification 
of an editor can be closer to a coin-toss than even an educated guess than 
one might wish in some cases.

What I've found is that the identification and classification of plants has 
such a complex history that botanists seem to like to try to "fix" it by 
applying a more "accurate" identification.
The use of quotations is not intended to indicate that they are wrong, but 
rather that the aside from something like "Hortus III" or another of the 
expensive books on plant names it is difficult if not impossible for the 
non-botanist to keep up!

One of the things which also becomes challenging is that the literature 
from Britain does not give the same scientific names as the literature in 
America.  This is particularly the case with pretty much anything prior to 
WWII.  (And even more so prior to WWI>)

I hope this helps!

RauthulfR Meistari inn Orthstori (OL, mCE, P-eX, Et Cetera)
or, non-SCA: Michael Wolfe M. A. I. S. AB-
*Practice Random Acts of Chocolate.....

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