What are dead man's bones?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
March 14, 2005
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In John Gerard's day (the late 1500s), the stitchwort was considered a grass, "Gramen Leucanthemum, or White-floured Grasse", though he pointed out that Ruellius (Jean Ruel, a French botanist) "termed it Holosteum", a word 'Latinized' from the Greek words, holos, "all" and osteon, "bone".
In 1753, Linnaeus placed the plant among the chickweeds or starworts and kept Ruel's holosteum. Botanically, the stitchwort became Stellaria holostea.
Stitchworts, Gerard wrote, "grow in the borders of fields upon banke sides and hedges, almost every where. They flourish all the Sommer, especially in May and June." (The Herball, or General Historie of Plants, Gerard, 1633 ed)
The common name stitchwort is old dating back to the Anglo-Saxon, sticwyrt. According to Geoffrey Grigson, stitchwort was a plant "belonging to the devil, piskies (pixies), the Jack a Lantern (the lantern-carrying elf or goblin...) and to snakes...." He added that "...children feared picking the flowers, if they did, the adder would bite them, or they would be piskey-led (bewildered, wandering lost). Picking the flowers could also provoke thunder and lightning.
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According to Geoffrey Grigson, stitchwort was a plant "belonging to the devil, piskies (pixies), the Jack a Lantern (the lantern-carrying elf or goblin...) and to snakes...." He added that "...children feared picking the flowers, if they did, the adder would bite them, or they would be piskey-led (bewildered, wandering lost).
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Most likely during the church's effort to do away with pagan beliefs, the stitchwort became 'holy' and said "to banish evil, belonging to the Virgin, and associated with Whitsunday and the Star of Bethlehem." (The Englishman's Flora, Grigson, 1958)
Gerard reported the stitchwort's two virtues (medicinal values), "They are wont to drinke it in Wine with the powder of Acornes, against the paine in the side, stitches, and such like. Divers (others) report, saith Dioscorides, That the Seed of Stitchwort being drunke causeth a woman to bring forth a man childe, if after the purgation of her Sicknesse, before she conceive, she do drinke it fasting thrice in a day, halfe a dram at a time, in three ounces of water many dayes together." (The Herball)
Being a man of science, Gerard would, of course, never recognize such superstitions as pixies or Jacks a Lantern. But anything put in a glass of wine, well, it had to help. And the man child recipe? It worked about 50 percent of the time and that was pretty-good scientific odds.
As a slight toward his inferiors, Gerard added that, alternately, the stitchwort was called Tota ossea. In English, it was "all bones" or "dead man's bones". The names apparently referred to the easily fracturing stems. Gerard thought these names nonsense "...whereof I see no reason, except...as when we say in English, He is an honest man, our meaning is that he is a knave...."
Carl Farmer has posted some beautiful photographs of Stellaria holostea taken in Scorrybreac, Scotland. To view his photographs, click on the link:
Click here to view his photographs
Scroll down to view all of Farmer's photographs.
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Suggested Reading:
Why was it called chickweed? What's in a Name? - January 9, 2004
What weed was a treatment for mange? Herbal Folklore - January 5, 2004
Could dill dull pain? Herbal Folklore - November 17, 2003
What common weed is called a poorman's weatherglass? What's in a Name? - October 26, 2001
What lawn weed was once a tonic? Herbal Folklore - January 28, 2002
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