Western Isles Wildflowers

Western Isles wildflowers is a collection of information about our Hebridean wildflowers including identification hints, traditional herbal uses and general plant lore.

 

Buck's-horn Plantain

(Cornu Cervinum, Herba Stella, Herb Ivy, Buckshorne, and Hartshorne)

Plantago coronopus

Gaelic: Adhairc Fèidh

Buck's-horn plantain likes growing in salty places - that includes in crevices of rocks and cliffs by the sea, salt marshes, strips along the roadside, when roads are salted against ice, the salt is washed off forming the high-salt habitat that sea plantain favours.

The name of this wildflower comes from the leaf-shape.

We get four of the five UK species of plantain growing in the Western Isles:
Sea plantain, ribwort plantain, buck's horn plantain and great plantain.

They are easy to tell apart.
Ribwort plantain has stongly ribbed leaves which are finger shaped.
Great plantain has big flat and wide egg-shaped leaves (ribbed)
Sea plantain has yellow flowers and long leaves, narrow like grass.
Buck's horn plantain has leaves that look like minature`antlers!

Uses of Buck's Horn Plantain

All specification and preparations are the same as Great Plantain Plantage Major. It used to be made into a wine and was said to be a remedy for gall stones and kidney gravel, and the leaves applied to sore areas of joints and swellings. It was also reputed to be good for sore eyes.

Photography © Suzanne Harris. Notes by Ela Springwater
Dail Beag - Isle of Lewis - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
24th June, 2006