
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 25, 1994                   TAG: 9407250017
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Monty S. Leitch
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WOODLAND WALK

FOR A few days last week, I had the pleasure of vacationing with a friend. We stayed barely 50 miles from my home, but on a walk along a wooded creek bank I spotted two plants I'd never seen here. One was blooming, yellow and profuse; the other had recently bloomed, but its stalk and flower were dried and colorless.

Back home, relying on my not-so-reliable memory, I leafed through my wildflower guides until I spotted again what I'd seen in the woods.

The recent-bloomer was most certainly a species of rattlesnake weed, common to open fields and woods, according to Gupton and Swope's wonderful "Wildflowers of the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains." Had I seen the bloom, I'd have seen a handful of spiky little yellow flowers.

The bloomer was a loosestrife, probably either whorled loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia) or garden loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris). I fear I didn't look closely enough at either the leaves or the blooms in the woods to be sure of my identification at home.

But it doesn't really matter. For what's captured my imagination about this plant is its name. Loosestrife. What a serendipitous sighting for a woman on vacation! A flower so adept at loosening vain strivings that its agency has been secured in its very name.

"Reader's Digest North American Wildlife" includes this delightful bit of folklore concerning the loosestrifes: "'If thy yoked oxen show contention, give them loosestrife,' admonished the ancient Greek physician Dioscorides. `Do ye the same,' he added, 'for quarrelsome lovers.' Although their tranquilizing powers are not documented, these plants were until recent times widely used as a nerve tonic for both man and beast. Lysimachus, a legendary Sicilian king, is said to have noted this trait while being chased by a bull. The monarch desperately thrust a sprig of loosestrife at the maddened animal and the bull was instantly pacified - released from its strife."

If I read loosestrife's scientific name correctly, Lysimachus got himself immortalized, too, by this bit of quick thinking.

Also evident from the Lysimachus story is the fact that loosestrifes were introduced into North America from Europe. But they now grow wild from "Quebec to Ontario and south to Maryland, Ohio, and Illinois," according to "Reader's Digest Magic and Medicine of Plants."

A fascinating book, by the way, which also discloses that in addition to recommending loosestrife for the treatment of strident oxen, Dioscorides recommended loosestrife as "a wound herb and stancher of blood." Depending, I suppose, on just how quarrelsome those lovers had become.

Garden loosestrife is not marked in "Magic and Medicine" with a warning red "X - Poisonous," as are many of the plants included in the book. Instead, "Magic and Medicine" reports that "Scientists have not investigated the plant for its medicinal value, and can neither confirm nor refute ... claims" for its efficacy as an astringent, expectorant, gargle or hair bleach.

My investigations conclude, however, that its tranquilizing powers are as claimed. Your strivings will slacken, relax and release if, on a vacation walk in the woods, you happen to come upon loosestrife.

Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.

by CNB