Country diary: The colourful coltsfoot was once in great demand | Phil Gates

Hexham, Northumberland: It's back in flower on the riverbank - 80 years ago, mobilised herb-gatherers would have been harvesting this as part of the wartime effortOn our way into town this morning we found coltsfoot blooming on the bank of the River Tyne, and when I noticed a jar of coltsfoot rock in the corner of the Hexham Sweetie Jar's bow-fronted window, it seemed like an auspicious moment to investigate this herbal confectionery.The sweets, shaped like miniature kerbstones, were flavoured with liquorice, so I still don't know what raw coltsfoot medicine tastes like, but every herbal ever written extols coltsfoot's therapeutic value for bronchial ailments; even its scientific name, Tussilago farfara, derived from the Latin for a cough, tussis, alludes to its use. John Gerard, in his Herbal of 1597, advised that "A decoction made of the greene leaves and roots ? is good for the cough that preceedeth of the thin rheum". And if that fails, put it in your pipe and smoke it: "the fume of the dried leaves taken through a funnell ? burned upon coles, effectually helpeth those that are troubled with shortness of breath", he wrote. Continue reading...