October 07, 2026
LOOSESTRIFE
The word Loosestrife is a translation of the plant’s Latin name Lysimachia (from the Greek lysis, dissolution, and mache, strife). Gerarde, who calls the plant, also, Willow-herb, says of it:—“Lysimachia, as Dioscorides and Pliny write, tooke his name of a speciall vertue that it hath in appeasing the strife and unrulinesse which falleth out among oxen at the plough, if it be put about their yokes; but it rather retaineth and keepeth the name Lysimachia, of King Lysimachus, the sonne of Agathocles, the first finder-out of the nature and vertues of this herbe.” He adds that the smoke of the herb when burnt will drive away gnats, flies, all manner of venomous beasts, and serpents; and says that Pliny reports that snakes will crawl away at the smell of Loosestrife.