Gnaphalium uliginosum L., Marsh Cudweed

Account Summary

Growth form and preferred habitats

A small, procumbent, sprawling, grey-woolly annual, around 15-20 cm tall, producing profusely branched short stems bearing clusters of up to ten small, almost stalkless flowerheads. It flowers from July to September, each flowerhead consisting of very small, yellowish-grey, tubular florets surrounded by brown bracts.

Marsh Cudweed occurs in both semi-natural and artificial, disturbed damp habitats that are seasonally or winter flooded, and where open muddy or sandy ground alternates between exposure and inundation. Puddles on unpaved tracks, rutted woodland paths and rides, roadsides, waste ground or around farm gates, exposed lake, pond and reservoir shores, trampled river banks and around temporary pools, eg in sand- or rock-quarry pits, all provide suitable growing conditions.

G. uliginosum features on a range of mild to strongly acidic, muddy soils, but is much more frequent in sandy situations, sometimes forming a thin grey carpet over stretches of sand or small gravel on lakeshores. It is very tolerant of disturbance, particularly trampling, since it regularly occurs along tracks and around farm gateways. In horse paddocks, where the soil becomes poached and muddy around gates and troughs, a silver-grey carpet of Marsh Cudweed can develop the following summer on what then appears to be very hard, dry ground. It can also occupy compacted ground in agricultural fields and around housing (Perring & Walters 1989; Stroh et al. 2023). The established strategy of G. uliginosum is categorised as SR, ie it is a Stress-tolerant Ruderal (Grime et al. 1988, 2007).

Mainly a lowland species, G. uliginosum reaches an altitude of 590 m in Wales and exceptionally 919 m at Stob Coire Sgriodan in Westerness (VC 97) (P.A. Stroh & G. Halliday, in: Stroh et al. 2023).

Fermanagh occurrence

Marsh Cudweed is common and has been recorded in 111 tetrads in Fermanagh, over 21% of those in the VC. It is widespread throughout lowland areas of the VC but, rather surprisingly, there must have been some local decline in available habitats, since eleven tetrads have no post-1975 records. This may simply have arisen through the species being regarded as of no conservation significance and, therefore, unfortunately, was ignored, neglected and unrecorded.

Flowering reproduction

G. uliginosum branches bear three-ten sessile flowerheads clustered at the tips of leafy stems, each surrounded by ovate, shining, brownish involucral bracts (phyllaries), with a broad scarious margin, woolly below, darker at the tip. The clusters of flowerheads at the branch tips are each surrounded by conspicuous leaves, some of which overtop them (Clapham et al. 1987). The flowerheads contain both outer, slender, thread-like female, and inner tubular, perfect (ie bisexual) flowers 2mm long, but since they do not attract many insect visitors, self-pollination is presumably both possible and important (Clapham et al. 1962; Hutchinson 1972; Perring & Walters 1989). The achene fruits are elliptic or ovoid in shape, very small, 0.4 mm long, smooth, glabrous and crowned with a pappus of shining white bristles c 1.5 mm long, that soon fall off after wind dispersal (Butcher 1961; Salisbury 1964). Achene production is estimated at 12,260/plant/year (Salisbury 1976).

The soil seed bank survey of NW Europe contains no less than 41 estimates for G. uliginosum, four studies suggesting it is transient (ie survives less than one year in the soil), 15 believe it is short-term persistent (ie surviving burial one-five years), 14 concluded it was long-term persistent (ie surviving at least five years), while the remaining eight studies recognised seed was present in the soil but could not determine which of the other three categories to place it in (Thompson et al. 1997).

British and Irish occurrence

G. uliginosum is widespread and common throughout B & I, but it is scarce or absent in a few places in N Scotland (including the Highlands) and also in C Ireland where it avoids limestone soils (BSBI Atlas 2; Garrard & Streeter 1983; New Atlas; Stroh et al. 2023). The three main BSBI surveys indicate that it appears to be spreading across B & I, but to some extent this expansion may be an artefact created by more intensive and extensive plant recording and a greater interest in recording disturbed ground habitats than was present previously.

European and world occurrence

A member of the Eurasian boreo-temperate phytogeographical element, G. uliginosum is considered native and common across most of Europe and W Asia, reaching 68.5^oN in Scandinavia. It is also introduced and widespread in N America, making it circumpolar (Clapham et al. 1962, 1987; Fitter 1978; Hultén & Fries 1986, Map 1789).

Uses

G. uliginosum contains a volatile oil and tannin and is an astringent with a long history of use in herbal medicine. In the 16th and 17th century, it was used to treat dysentery and it is still used for its anti-catarrhal and antiseptic properties for laryngitis and tonsillitis (https://herbpathy.com/Uses-and-Benefits-of-Gnaphalium-Uliginosum-Cid3741, accessed 02/February/2023). Infusions of G. uliginosum are known to possess anti-inflammatory, astringent, antiseptic and hypotensive properties (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874114002827#bibliog0005, accessed 02/February/2023).

Names

The name 'Gnaphalium' comes from the Greek for 'woolly' or 'felt' (Johnson & Smith 1946; Gilbert-Carter 1964). The Latinised specific epithet, 'uliginosum' is from the Latin meaning 'marshy'.

The English common name 'Cudweed' or 'Cudweede', sometimes 'Cudwort', appears to be applied to several members belonging to both of the genera Gnaphalium and Filago. 'Cudweed' appears to originate in Turner (1548) The Names of Herbes. In the facsimile edition, it is on p. 167, where he says under the name, "Centunculus named in greke Gnaphalion....It maye be called in englishe Chafweede, it is called in Yorke shyre cudweede". Cudweed, or alternatively 'Quidweed' (according to Mascal (1662, p. 40)), The government of cattle, quoted in Britten & Holland (1886), was a plant, "which they bruise small and put a quantity of fat thereunto, and so convey it into the beast's mouth to swallow that hath lost his quide (or cud), and so he will amend."

Chafweede refers to a Northumberland use of the woolly or downy plant, "because it is thought to be good for chafinge of anye mans flesh with goynge (going) or rydyne (riding)" (Turner's Herball (1568), quoted in Britten & Holland (1886).

Alternative English common names applied to G. uliginosum include 'Wayside Cudweed', 'Cotton Weed', 'Marsh Everlasting' (Grieve 1931). In N America, it is referred to as 'Brown Cudweed', Low Cudweed', 'Cotton Dawes' and 'Dysentery Weed' (https://herbpathy.com/Uses-and-Benefits-of-Gnaphalium-Uliginosum-Cid3741, accessed 04/February/2023).

Threats

None.

References

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