More Morton Magic #17: Netle In, Dokke Out!
This is the last of a 17-cache series which will take you on a wonderful 6km looping trail up the deep Morton valley through Sunnydale and The Glen passing historical farm and residential buildings, industrial ruins, mill ponds and weirs, rich deciduous and pine woodlands, a reservoir, waterfall, low moorland, farm fields and then back down an old track and flower-festooned path into the village.
The cache, a small, camo-taped screw-capped plastic pot, is hidden on the bank of this narrower section of the Upland Lane track, aka Grassy Lane, as it runs down just east of Moorands Farm.
The last common plant to be featured and which again grows in many suitable locations along the series route is the (bitter/broad-leaved/bluntleaf or butter) dock (leaf) Rumex obtusifolius - one of 200 dock species worldwide of which some 14 are found in the UK. Rumex was Pliny's name for sorrel, while the Latin obtusifolius means 'obtuse-leaved' (obtuse + foliage).
It is a long-lived, perennial herbaceous flowering plant in the family Polygonaceae, native to Europe, but found on all temperate continents. It is a highly invasive in some areas as a result of its abundant seed dispersal, adaptability to reproduce, aggressive roots, ability to tolerate extreme climates, and hardiness.
It is widely distributed throughout the world, growing readily on recently disturbed land, arable land, meadows, waste ground, roadsides, ditches, shorelines, riverbanks, woodland margins, forest clearings, and orchards.
Docks grow as basal rosettes of foliage in early spring and are often one of the first greens to emerge. It grows to a height of 40-150cm and easily recognizable by its very large oval leaves with cordate bases and rounded tips, some of the lower leaves having red stems. It has a thick tap root up to 90cm long which can regrow from the top if broken off.
Its leaves can grow to about 30cm long and 15cm wide. Their edges are slightly wavy, the upper surface is hairless and the under surface may be papillose.
It blooms from June-September and by late spring or early summer, it produces tall flower stalks that bear
copious amounts of seed (up to 60,000 per plant according to some sources!) which germinate readily if left on the surface and are capable of surviving in the soil for up to 50 years.
Food Uses: the leaves can be used as salad, to prepare a vegetable broth or to be cooked like spinach. They contain oxalic acid which can be hazardous if consumed in large quantities as this may promote the formation of kidney stones. A tea prepared from the root was thought to cure boils. Boiled dock leaves were used as pig food.
In George Eliot's Adam Bede, set in the early 19th century, its leaves were used to wrap farmhouse butter. It was similarly used for cheese - the broad leaves being ideal as a wrapping and believed to have a cooling effect.
Medicinal Uses: In Ireland and the UK, it is often found growing near stinging nettles and there is a widely and long-held belief that the underside of the dock leaf or the base of the leaf stem, squeezed to extract a little juice, can be rubbed on the skin to counteract the intense itching caused by nettle stings. Although this is not supported by any scientific evidence, it is possible that the plant juice may have a cooling effect, the act of rubbing may act as a distracting counter-stimulation, or that the expectation alone may provide a placebo effect.
The Anglo-Saxon chronicles of the late 9th century recorded this effect. In 1386, in Troilus and Creseyde, Chaucer quoted an ancient charm to be recited as the leaf was applied: ‘Netle in, dokke out.’ Folk practice and herbal advice down the centuries have confirmed the idea.
'Relief from nettle stings was only part of a wider medicinal bounty apparently offered by dock leaves. Their virtue was declared in Bald’s Leechbook*, a 9th-century collection of ancient medical lore (a manuscript of it is held by the British Library), as a remedy for ‘water-elf sickness’, an ancient expression that covered skin eruptions including chicken pox, measles and ergot poisoning. *‘leech’, a dismissive word supposedly based on the use of the slimy annelid for blood-letting, derives from laece, Anglo-Saxon for doctor).
Bald’s text declares: ‘I have wreathed round the wounds the best of healing wreaths, so the baneful sores
may neither burn or burst, nor find their way further, nor turn foul and fallow, nor thump and throb, nor be wicked wounds, nor dig deeply down: but he himself may hold in a way to health.’
Doctor leaf was an East Anglian tribute to its value as an instant wrap for a bleeding scratch. Elsewhere, it was bitter dock, kettle dock, bluntleaf and smair dock. Rural folk appreciated the cooling and soothing effect of fresh leaves placed in their shoes. When tobacco arrived on these shores, gentlemen lined their pouches with dock leaves to keep the contents moist.' [Country Life, 21/8/21]
Host plant: Dock plants support many species of insects, including butterflies, moths, plant bugs and beetles. Fallow deer are particularly fond of the leaves.
Invasiveness and eradication: it is an aggressive invasive species and designated an 'injurious weed' - one of 5 plants covered under the UK Weeds Act 1959. See here for a detailed illustrated Government leaflet on Identification of Injurious Weeds of these - 2 of which are dock species.
Its various parasites and predators include 32 insect and 12 fungi species.
See here for more info on this plant.
See here for a very entertaining short video presentation on The Broadleaved Dock - Facts, Uses, Identification & Folklore.
