Purple Loosestrife.

Lythrum salicaria. (This Plant is also called Flowering Sally.)

Also see Hool, 1922: Purple Loosestrife.

Natural Order—lythraceae.

Purple Loosestrife is one of our common wild plants, beautiful and ornamental, and found throughout Great Britain. The stems grow from 2 to 4 feet high. The leave are nearly sessile, lanceolate, acute, entire, and from 2 to 5 inches long, growing mostly opposite to each other, sometimes in whorls of three or four. The root is woody. The flowers are numerous and large, each of a variable purple or crimson colour, blooming from July to September.

Medicinal Properties: Alterative, Antispasmodic, Diuretic, Astringent, Febrifuge, Tonic, and Demulcent.

It is employed chiefly in fevers, liver diseases, constipation, diarrhoea, dysentery, and in bleedings of all kinds. For outward application to wounds and sores, the parts affected should be frequently bathed with the decoction, and, where necessary, a poultice or cloths dipped in a strong decoction may be applied.

Used alone, boil one ounce in 1½ pints of water for 10 minutes; strain, and give warm from one-half to a teacupful every half-hour in Asiatic cholera, cholera morbus; and for infantile cholera in doses proportional to age. Add a quarter-ounce of crushed Lump Ginger for feverish difficulties.

Health from British Wild Herbs was written by Richard Lawrence Hool, N.A.M.H., in 1918.