This site and its content are under development.

Pulmonaria officinalis L., Lungwort

Account Summary

Introduction, neophyte, a very rare casual garden escape or discard. European temperate, absent as a native from much of W Europe but frequently cultivated and naturalised.

24 December 1996; Northridge, R.H. & Northridge, Mrs H.J.; wet woods at the base of low but steep portion of cliffs of Pollaphuca (or Poulaphouca).

Growth form

Lungwort is an low, erect, tufted, shortly creeping, bristly, herbaceous perennial up to 30 cm tall with large, oval basal leaves, heavily marked with large, conspicuous white blotches and spots (supposed by the 'Doctrine of Signs' to resemble diseased lung tissue) and hence its scientific and English common names. Basal leaves 10-20 × 4-10 cm, elliptic to broadly ovate, margins entire but undulate and narrowed or cordate at the base with a winged petiole. The leaves and stems are densely covered with short, hard, stiff hairs, making them feel very rough to the touch. The inflorescence is a short, congested cyme of bisexual, heterostylous flowers, 13-18 mm long, 10 mm across, pink in bud, turning bluish when open (Huxley 1967).

Variation

There is a considerable range of variation in the genus Pulmonaria, and in P. officinalis, for instance, the development of the white blotches on the leaves is variable, even within a single population. Other variable matters are the rosette leaves (summer leaves) that develop during flowering, the effect of dimorphic heterostyly on flower size and stamen insertion, and the interior of the corolla tube, which may be glabrous or hairy below the tufts of hairs at the corolla tube mouth (H. Merxmϋler & W. Sauer, in: Tutin et al. 1972, Flora Europaea 3).

Some taxonomic treatments consider P. officinalis contains two subspecies (subsp. obscura (Dumort.) Murb. and subsp. maculosa (Hayne) Gams.), but they are also regarded by others as separate species, respectively P. obscura and P. officinalis. The key point between the two is the degree of white spotting on the leaves, P. obscura being unspotted or with faint green spots (Sell & Murrell 2009). The sterility of the hybrids between these two is considered sufficient to recognise the two as species (H. Merxmϋler & W. Sauer, in: Tutin et al. 1972).

Origin, introduction and preferred habitats

Lungwort is a popular garden plant introduced from C Europe to gardens in B & I sometime around the late 16th century or earlier. Despite its botanical and English common names, it was more grown for decoration than medical or culinary use. In English folklore, Allen & Hatfield (2004, p. 207) could find only rare mention of its medicinal use in Hampshire and Norfolk, and no reference to it at all in Ireland. The species was first recorded in the wild in Britain in 1793 and it now regularly crops up as an established, naturalised escape or discard in damp, ± open, shaded or semi-shaded conditions, preferring but not confined to rich, deep, humus soils, generally over limestone (Blamey & Grey-Wilson 1989). Habitats include woodland, scrub, roadside hedges and banks, and on rough ground, always in lowland situations (FNEI 3; Clement & Foster 1994; D. Welch, in: Preston et al. 2002).

Fermanagh and Irish occurrence

In Ireland, it is only ever a casual garden escape or discard and it does not persist for long. The two records in the Fermanagh Flora Database are most remarkable for the fact that they were recorded in a quite remote site in 1996 around Christmas time! The second record was made four days after the first discovery listed above, further west along the same range of cliffs. The details of the second record are: wet woods at the base of cliffs, W of waterfalls at GR H0577, Cliffs of Magho, 28 December 1996, RHN.

Taken together, the Cen Cat Fl Ir 2 and the Cat Alien Pl Ir list at least one record of P. officinalis from five other Irish VCs. These include ground around Co Dublin (H21), but are mainly in the north of the island (ie in Cos Tyrone (H36), Down (H38), Antrim (H39) and Londonderry (H40) (FNEI 3).

British occurrence

The New Atlas hectad map showed P. officinalis much more widely recorded in Britain than was the case in the 1962 BSBI Atlas. It is now particularly frequent in S England, where there are very many active recorders.

The increased coverage displayed in the New Atlas hectad map undoubtedly reflects both increased abundance of the plant, as well as more intensive recording of introduced alien species than previously was the case (D. Welch, in: Preston et al. 2002).

European and world occurrence

P. officinalis, rather than P. obscura, is the form that is found across most of B & I. It is distributed in mainland Europe in a tightly restricted manner from the Netherlands and S Sweden to N Italy and Bulgaria (Hultén & Fries 1986, Map 1542). The map just mentioned has an incorrect representation of the B & I occurrence of the species, showing it confined to SE England. The Hultén & Fries (1986) map for P. officinalis subsp. obscura (Map 1543) shows it widespread in Europe from the Alps eastwards into W Asia and north into S Scandinavia. This latter subspecies or species is also shown as an introduction further east into C Asia, and SE around the Black Sea area.

Names

The genus name 'Pulmonaria' is from the Latin 'pulmo' or 'pulmōnes', 'pertaining to the lungs', the idea being the blotched leaves looked like lung tissues and that this was a 'signature', suggesting the plant was useful for treating pulmonary disorders. The Latin specific epithet 'officinalis' meant 'kept at the druggist's 'shop'' (officina), ie used medicinally (Gilbert-Carter 1964).

There are a large number of English common names associated with P. officinalis, 27 being listed by Vickery (2019) and 28 by Brittain & Holland (1886). Many names refer to the white blotches on the leaves, including 'Lady Mary's tears', 'Lady's Milk-sile' (sile meaning soil), 'Lady's Pincushion' (the white spots resembling pins'-heads on a cushion), 'Mother Mary's Milk', and 'Virgin Mary's milk-drops', 'Virgin Mary's tears', all referring to legends of Mary feeding milk or weeping over her son. Another feature often referred to in common names is the bicoloured flowers, with names such as 'Adam and Eve', 'Joseph and Mary' or 'Joseph and Maries', 'Joseph's coat of many colours', 'Soldier and his wife', 'Soldiers and Sailors'. The association with the Virgin Mary was on account of the blue and pink flowers, these two colours being the colours of Mary's clothes in medieval paintings (Vickery 2019).

Threats

None.