Wild Raspberry.

Rubus idaus.

Natural Order—Rosacea. Linnean System, Class 12, Icosandria; Order 3rd, Polygnia.

A wild and very useful plant found growing in woods and thickets, in dry, stony, or gravelly places, on heaths and mossland. The stems are erect, from three to four feet high, branched, and covered with small, straight, slender prickles. The leaves are composed of five small leaflets, two on each side of a midrib, with a terminal one at the end; pale green on the top and white and downy underneath. The leaf stalks are channeled. The flowers are small and white, pendulous, and in simple clusters. They contain numerous stamens, and are attached to the sepals or calyx. Flowers in May or June. It is a biennial.

Medicinal Properties: Astringent, Stimulant, Tonic, and slightly Alterative.

The leaves of Raspberry are invaluable for removing canker from the mucous surfaces of the body, cleansing the system of all filthy material, and giving Nature the opportunity to bring about complete restoration of health. It has been used with signal success in constipation, combined with Mountain Flax, as follows:—

Raspberry Leaves ... 1 oz.
Mountain Flax ... 1½ oz.

Infuse in one quart of boiling water; let stand for 20 minutes, cool, strain off the clear liquor, and give one wineglassful three or four times a day, or oftener, if required.

Used as a gargle, it is good for sore throat and mouth. For this purpose, boil one ounce of the herb in 1½ pints of water down to one pint; when cool, strain, and gargle frequently.

Raspberry Leaves are one of the most useful as well as one of the safest remedies for the complaints peculiar to childhood, such as diarrhoea, fevers, measles, smallpox, chickenpox, and dysentery.

The warm infusion, with a pinch of Composition Powder added, is a valuable medicine for women in labour, quieting untimely pains, but rendering them more efficient if labour has really commenced. Give one teacupful of the infusion every hour until labour is completed. It may be taken, with grateful results, for several months before the expected event. If this herb were generally used instead of ordinary tea haemorrhage would rarely occur after confinement and instruments would rarely be required.

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