Lungwort, Marrick
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Lungwort, Marrick by Maigheach-gheal as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Lungwort, Marrick
Image: © Maigheach-gheal Taken: 3 Apr 2011
The plant is to be found growing against the wall in Image Lungwort in some regions was called "Herb of Mary", and was said to be used as proof for revealing if a person was a witch. In the past, many wild flowers and herbs were associated with the Virgin Mary and St. Bridget, and all of them were worn or used as a protection against witches and evil spirits. Lungwort has a variety of folk names, amongst them are Soldiers and Sailors, Lung Moss (not to be confused with actual lungmoss), Spotted Dog, Joseph and Mary, and Bethlehem Sage. It is also called Mary's Tears because the white spots on the leaves resemble tear stains, and the changing colour of the flowers from pink to blue represent blue eyes becoming reddened from weeping.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
54.3796
Longitude
-1.881574