Species: Water Figwort (Scrophularia auriculata)
Family: Figworts (SCROPHULARIACEAE)
Category: Flowering Plants
Location: NW
A. Flowering Plants
More extensive information on flowering plants can be found in a separate blog post.
B. Figworts (SCROPHULARIACEAE)
This is a varied cosmopolitan family, whose members were thought to cure scrofula, a gangrenous tubercular condition of the lymph glands, also known as the 'king's evil'. It was held that the monarch could cure it by his touch. Edward the Confessor was the earliest king known to have touched sufferers, and the last was Queen Anne, who touched the two-year-old Samuel Johnson in 1712.
C. Water Figwort (Scrophularia auriculata)
This perennial of damp places rises like a Willowherb to nearly two metres in height, showing small, brown, gaping flowers. Unlike the Common Figwort, this native plant has winged stems and leaf stalks. It flowers from late May or June.
This plant is on a survey list dated August 2018 provided by the Sussex Botanical Recording Society. It had remained unobserved/undetected for several years thereafter until its re-appearance in Spring 2024 (after the season's exceedingly damp conditions) in a particularly vigorous individual that reached nearly 2 metres in height.
A figwort poultice is used for ulcers, piles, scrofulous swellings and for toothache. The dried stems, with the leaves stripped off, are called 'fiddlewood', because they make a squeaking noise when scrape
Images
Water Figwort
This perennial of damp places rises like a Willowherb to nearly two metres in height, showing small, brown, gaping flowers.
Water Figwort
The leaves of Water Figwort are gently rounded at the tip, rather than being acutely pointed as are Green or Common Figwort leaves.
Water Figwort
This particularly vigorous individual reached nearly 2 metres in height after the damp Spring of 2024.
Water Figwort
The stems of Water Figwort are square, hollow, and distinctly winged.
Water Figwort
A figwort poultice is used for ulcers, piles, scrofulous swellings and for toothache.
