Wort(hy) of note

Figwort's flowers are tiny pouches the colour of venous blood, each one with a sort of lid invitingly raised to facilitate the entry of its bee or wasp pollinator.

I was pleased to notice this straggly and frankly unimpressive-looking weed on our public veg patch close by the town health centre. Being a 'wort' indicates it was one of those plants (there are many) once  deemed medicinally efficacious against particular ailments, in this case  scrofula, an  unpleasant swelling and eruption of the lymph glands in the neck, usually the result of tuberculosis and often fatal in the pre-antibiotic era.
(The alternative treatment was the royal touch, a practice offered by the monarchy until 1825.)

Although not recommended for its edibility figwort was a known famine food and as such saved the people of La Rochelle during the 13 month siege of the town in 1628,  hence its French name l'herbe du siege.
It was also handy to have around if you were bitten by a mad dog, the prescription for hydrophobia being very specific (if tricky to administer):

'every morning while fasting, a slice of bread and butter on which the powdered knots of the roots had been spread and eating it up with two tumblers of fresh spring water. Then let the patient be well clad in woollen garments and made to take a long, fast walk until in a profuse perspiration, the treatment being continued for seven days.'

(Hm, those tumblers of water might prove more of a challenge  for your average hydrophobe than the figwort sarnies.)