![\"Crocus](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/untitled-shoot-003.jpg\")
<\/a>Crocus\u00a0are usually the second sign of spring. Snowdrops are the first, daffodils the third.<\/p><\/div>\n
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A less common sign of spring here is the flower that was\u00a0blooming yesterday near the front door. It’s a common plant, found in many shady or woodland gardens, with almost 100 named\u00a0cultivars, but I haven’t used it widely. \u00a0It’s pulmonaria or common lungwort.<\/p>\n
I don’t know the name of the lungwort that is growing in my garden but it has the distinctive hairy stem, the spotted leaves and the flowers that change colour from pink to blue as they age. I found it growing in a garden next door to Glen Villa, and when I began to plant the garden in the late 1990s, I transplanted several clumps. These have spread happily and now form a thick carpet under the large pine tree at the top of our front steps.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>This photo from last year shows buds of varying colours. The change from pink to blue tells bees whether the flower is too young to provide pollen and nectar, too old, or just right.<\/p><\/div>\n
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The name \u2018lungwort\u2019 is unattractive to my ears but both it and the plant\u2019s scientific name share an interesting history. \u2018Pulmonaria\u2019 comes from the Latin word ‘pulmo’ meaning lung; the name is one example of a doctrine that dates from the first century AD, to physicians and philosophers like Galen.<\/p>\n
Simply put, this doctrine was based on the idea that a plant which resembled an organ of the human body could\u00a0cure an ailment that stemmed from that organ. The spotted leaves of Pulmonaria were thought to resemble ulcerated lungs, and were used to treat pulmonary infections.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>The hairs on the stem and leaves of lungwort must have tickled the throat and may have made it useful as an expectorant.<\/p><\/div>\n
In medieval times the idea\u00a0acquired a theological aspect. God created plants that looked like parts of the body in order to alert people to their medicinal qualities. Botanists like William Coles (1626-1662) wrote that walnuts were good for curing ailments of the brain because \u201cthey Have the perfect Signatures of the Head.\u201d \u00a0Hypericum, or Saint Johns wort, was good for wounds and minor injuries because the \u201clittle holes whereof the leaves\u2026are full, do resemble all the pores of the skin\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n