Rattle, Dwarf Red
The Dwarf Red Rattle (Pedicularis sylvatica) and the Yellow
Rattle or Cock's Comb (Rhinanthus Crista-galli) are very
closely allied to the Eyebright. As remedies they have now fallen
into disuse.
There are two Red Rattles, but the commoner and medicinal one
is the Dwarf or Lesser Red Rattle, frequent in moist pastures and
on swampy heaths. It is quite a small plant, generally nestling
rather closely to the ground, the short root-stock sending up many
prostrate and spreading, leafy sterns, 3 to 10 inches long, branching
a good deal at the base and rarely more than 3 or 4 inches high
when in flower. The leaves are very deeply cut into numerous segments.
The flowers are in terminal, loose spikes, the calyx smooth on the
outside, but woolly inside at the mouth, broadly inflated and marked
over with a fine network of veins, and at the top, cut into five
unequal, leaf-like lobes. The lower portion of the corolla forms
a tube hidden within the calyx, but then emerging projects boldly
beyond it; it is labiate in form, like the Eyebright, the upper
lip tall and dome-like, but compressed at the sides, the lower lip
flatly expanded and cut into three very distinct lobes. Both are
of a bright rose colour and the whole flower is very striking and
quaint. As the seeds ripen, they may be heard rattling in their
capsule within the inflated calyx, hence the popular name Red Rattle.
Another name for the plant is 'Lousewort,' from a belief that sheep
eating it became diseased and covered with parasites, but when sheep
do suffer in this manner after eating this plant, it is really because
the presence of it in a pasture indicates a very bad and unsuitable
pasture, since marshy land, the best suited to its growth, is the
worst from the health point of view for the sheep. The generic name,
Pedicularis (from the Latin pediculus = a louse),
refers also to the supposititious vermin-producing qualities of
the plant.
- The old herbalists considered the Red Rattle a wound herb and
styptic. Culpepper tells us that:
- 'The Red Rattle is accounted profitable to heal fistulas and
hollow ulcers and to stay the flux of humours in them as also
the abundance of the courses or any other flux of blood, being
boiled in port wine and drunk.'
- Other Name: Red Rattle Grass. Lousewort. Lesser Red Rattle.
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