SELF-HEAL. HEAL-ALL.
Brunella vulgaris, L. Mint Family.
Stems.—Six to fifteen inches high. Leaves.—Opposite; petioled; ovate or oblong. Flowers.—In a dense, short spike, with broad, leafy bracts; purple, violet, or rarely white. Calyx.—Bilabiate; upper lip with three short teeth; the lower two-cleft. Corolla.—Bilabiate; upper lip arched, entire; lower three-lobed; deflexed. Stamens.—Four; in pairs. Filaments two-forked; one fork naked, the other bearing the two-celled anther. Ovary.—Of four seedlike nutlets. Style filiform; two-cleft above. Hab.—Widely distributed over the Northern Hemisphere.
From April to July the purple blossoms of the self-heal, or heal-all, may be found in the borders of woods or in open grounds.
The generic name is thought to come from the old German word, braune, a disease of the throat, for which this plant was believed to be a cure. According to the old doctrine of signatures, plants by their appearance were supposed to indicate the diseases for which nature intended them as remedies, and in England the Brunella was considered particularly efficacious in the disorders of carpenters and common laborers, because its corolla resembled a bill-hook. Hence it was commonly called "carpenter's herb," "hook-heal," and "sicklewort."
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