Dot Wordsworth

The poetry behind ‘leather and prunella’

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issue 24 July 2021

‘Oh, yes,’ said my husband, enthusiastically, ‘a loathsome disease. The tongue goes black and dry.’ He was referring to an historical grouping of symptoms given the name prunella.

If you are thinking it is therefore an unkind name to give a girl, that is because the name also applies to a pretty wild flower related to mint, commonly known as self-heal.

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