{"id":1833,"date":"2010-04-10T15:40:41","date_gmt":"2010-04-10T19:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iomaire.com\/?p=1833"},"modified":"2010-04-10T22:38:09","modified_gmt":"2010-04-11T02:38:09","slug":"colts-foot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/10\/colts-foot\/","title":{"rendered":"Colt&#8217;s Foot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I visited my property in Floyd County last week to take care of a number of things and, while there, took pictures of plants and flowers  that were unfamiliar to me.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fragmentsfromfloyd.com\/\">Fred First<\/a>, the resident botanical expert in Floyd, identified them for me.  Rather than combine all of the pictures into one post, I&#8217;m going to devote one post for each picture, because I&#8217;m adding interesting information about the plants that I&#8217;ve gleaned from the world&#8217;s largest library &#8211; the Internet.<\/p>\n<p>First up is Colt&#8217;s Foot (<em>tussilago farfara<\/em>):<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Colts-Foot.jpg\" alt=\"Colt's Foot.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This plant is a native of Great Britain and has been introduced to this country.  According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.arkive.org\/colts-foot\/tussilago-farfara\/info.html\">Arkive<\/a> website, &#8220;Colt\u2019s foot is one of the earliest flowers each spring. The alternative name \u2018son-before-father\u2019 refers to the fact that the bright yellow flowers held on purplish woolly shoots are often present before the leaves. The large leaves with their thick felt-covered undersides occur in rosettes. They are similar in shape to animal hooves, hence the names colt\u2019s or foal\u2019s-foot. The scientific name Tussilago derives from the latin for \u2018cough\u2019 (Tussis), and hints at the widespread smoking of the dried leaves in folk-medicine to cure coughs . It is still smoked in some areas today as herbal tobacco, and the names \u2018baccy plant\u2019 and \u2018poor-man\u2019s-baccy\u2019 survive in some parts of Britain. &#8230; This plant has been put to a wide range of uses through the years. The leaves can be incorporated into salads, cooked and used to make tea. The felt from the leaves has been used as a stuffing agent and dried for use as tinder. Colt\u2019s-foot is still available in health-food outlets as a treatment for coughs and other chest problems. The plant must be boiled before being ingested as it contains substances that can be toxic to the liver.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.botanical.com\/botanical\/mgmh\/c\/coltsf88.html\">Botanical.com<\/a> website has a great deal of information on the plant, should you be interested in reading it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I visited my property in Floyd County last week to take care of a number of things and, while there, took pictures of plants and flowers that were unfamiliar to me. Fred First, the resident botanical expert in Floyd, identified <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/10\/colts-foot\/\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,23,80],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1833"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1865,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833\/revisions\/1865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}