Soldiers and Sailors

LANTS blessed with an abundance of common names usually have interesting histories to match and for pulmonaria, the list is long. To describe these hardy, hairy-leaved perennials we have soldiers and sailors, Abraham Isaac and Jacob, Bethlehem sage, Jerusalem cowslip, spotted dog, Mary-spilt-the-milk or lungwort. Some are references to spring flowers that open rich pink and change to blue, with both colours showing together, like rubies and sapphires. Others refer to the oval leaves often spotted or blotched with silvery-white. To early herbalists the foliage resembled diseased lungs at a time when the appearance of a plant was seen as a divine clue to its medicinal use. This became known