Task Five - Daphne
Remus Lupin – Gryffindor
Herbology essay – Dittany
In this essay you will read all about Dittany. What does it do, what can the plant be used for and is it used only in the magical world?
Dittany is a magical plant used in Potions, and is a powerful healing herb and restorative. Its use makes fresh skin grow over a wound and after application it makes the wound look several days old. Shredded Dittany is an ingredient in the creation of the Wiggenweld Potion, which is a potion that has the power to awaken a person from a magically-induced sleep. The plant is also known as Burning Bush, it sometimes releases flammable vapours.
There are several plant varieties which are called dittany. The variety native to Crete is particularly reputed to have healing powers. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates considered dittany useful for stomach aches and complaints of the digestive system and as poultice for healing wounds, as well as inducing menstruation. The Greek scholar and philosopher Theophrastus noted in his work Enquiry into Plants that dittany was peculiar to Crete, and that it was. Today the wild and naturally grown dittany of Crete is classes as rare.
Origanum Dictamnus, or Dittany of Crete, is a tender perennial plant that grows around a foot high. It is a healing, therapeutic and aromatic plant that only grows wild on the mountainsides of the Greek island of Crete, hence it’s name. The plant is easily recognized by the soft woolly covering of white-gray hair on it’s stems and round green leaves.
Even in recent times the collection of dittany is a very dangerous occupation for the men who risked life and limb to climb precarious rock faces where the plant grows wild. Dittany of Crete has always been highly prized, it is gathered while in bloom in the summer months, and is exported for use in pharmaceuticals, perfumery and to flavour drinks such as vermouth and absinthe, non-magical alcoholic drinks.
The herb is used by modern witches, or those non magical and practice ‘magic’ in love potions and for divination and contact with spirits. When using it as an incense it is cautioned that spirits materialize in the smoke.
Dictamnus Albus, or White Dittany, is another form of Dittany. This one is closest to our magical dittany, and also carries the name Burning Bush, False Dittany, Gas plant or Fraxinella. It is a herbaceous perennial, native to warm open woodland habitats in Southern Europe, North Africa and much of Asia. This plant grows about 24 inches high. It’s flowers form a loose pyramidal spike and very in colour from pale purple to white. The flowers are five-petalled with long projected stamens. The leaves resemble those of an ash tree.
During the summer months, the whole plant is covered in some kind of flammable substance, which feels kind of sticky and has a lemony aroma, but if it takes fire, it goes off with a flash all over the plant. The name, Burning Bush, derives from the oils produced by the plant, which can catch fire fastly while the weather is hot, leading to comparisions with the burning bush from the Bible, which is the book of religion for a lot of non-magical people. Some even say that it’s the plant involved there.
Some use the dittany plant in herbalism. However it’s alternative name of False Dittany implies, it is unrelated to the dittany found in Crete, which has a much more significant history of medicinal use. Like dittany of Crete, dictamnus was believed to be useful for cordial and cephalic ailments, to help resist poison and combat putrefaction, and to be useful in malignant and pestilential fevers. It was also used in some cases of hysteria. It was believed to work powerfully by provoking urine and easing colicky pains which frequently accompany that disorder. The root was considered a remedy for epilepsies, a muggle illness that makes the ill stiffen and spasm, and other diseases of the head, opening obstructions of the womb and procuring the discharges of the uterus.
To conclude this essay, it’s most likely that we use the dictamnus albus in our recipes and as our medicinal use, there are many things alike in both versions though. Both used for healing and help in curing ailments. The plant has a long history outside of the magical world as well as inside it. So yes the plant is used outside of the magical world and most of the time served for the same purposes as we use Dittany for. It is possible that we have gotten the use of the plant from the non-magical world and from the Ancient Greeks such as Hippocrates.