Helpston's wildlife

Wild Carrot

Forget the home grown variety in your vegetable patch, the large white and pink umbellifer that flowers in profusion at Swaddywell Pit is the ancestor of all the modern varieties - although the wild one is unfortunately inedible!

In the 16th century a concoction of its red flowers was thought to be a great remedy for the 'falling disease' what we know today as epilepsy. In the next century it was used as medicine for such illnesses as stitch, kidney stones and dropsy.

The herbalist, Nicholas Cullpeper considered them beneficial too to expectant mothers, advising that wild carrot could help conception when boiled in wine!