Ubiquitous plant that heals human but harms cattle
Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris, Ground glutton or Sention) is an annual member of the Compositae family, growing up to 30cm in quite indifferent soil anywhere other than tropical areas. It has irregular, dull-green, deeply-cut leaves on soft, fleshy stems and bears a cylindrical flower-head with yellow florets that become soft, downy seed tufts similar to the dandelion. The plant is said to follow in the steps of civilized man wherever he plants seed.
The name is from the Old English, grundswilie, meaning ground swallower, surely a reference to the ubiquitous nature of the plant. Dioscorides recommended it be taken in warm wine to cure the bile, and believed it was good against the jaundice and the falling sickness (epilepsy). Pliny suggested it be taken in honey as a cure for expelling the gravel from the kidneys. It was also thought to soothe the nerves and cure wounds caused by iron weapons. Gerard obtained distilled water from groundsel and used it on the rheumy eye; he also states that ‘it helpeth the King’s evil, and if the leaves be stamped and boiled in milk it treats the afflicted gums in young children’. In parts of Europe it was believed that the freshly dug roots would cure any headache if inhaled, but only if the root was excavated using wooden tools.
Groundsel contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, principally senecin and seniocine, which are highly toxic. The plant is diaphoretic, antiscorbutic, purgative diuretic, and anthelmintic.
Herbalists have been known to use it in weak solution to purge and as an emetic. Poultices are more popular and are used to treat gout, torn muscles and sinews.
Sometimes a poultice would be placed on the stomach of a child to cause it to vomit up poisonous berries. In Germany, it was, until recently, used to expel intestinal worms in children, and in England, to worm horses. However, groundsel has now been identified as a scourge for grazing cattle, where it causes irreparable liver damage which is not traced until the terminal stage. It acts in a similar way to ragwort (senecio jacobaea).
Interestingly, it has little effect on sheep and goats, which, because of the presence of rumen bacteria in their gut, appear immune to the alkaloids. Farmers in eastern Europe use sheep to clear the plant before giving over the pasture to cattle.
Next week Betony
