Net-leaf plantain

Chronic, boggy, indolent swelling of the cervical lymph nodes with little heat or acute pain, the classic picture called scrofula by the Eclectics

A weeping, sluggish skin ulcer or eruption that refuses to close, calling for the leaf applied fresh or as a poultice

Overview. Goodyera pubescens, downy rattlesnake plantain, is a small evergreen woodland orchid native to eastern North America, prized for its net-veined variegated leaf rosette rather than its inconspicuous white flower spike. The fresh or dried leaves were the part used by nineteenth century American Eclectic physicians, who regarded the plant chiefly as a mild alterative and topical vulnerary. It never entered mainstream pharmacopoeias and remains a minor, largely historical remedy known mostly through Eclectic and folk sources.

Clinical Notes. This is a quiet, low-key remedy rather than a dramatic one. The Eclectics reached for it in cases of chronic, cold, boggy glandular swelling of the neck (what they called scrofula, often overlapping with what we would now recognize as tuberculous or chronic reactive lymphadenopathy), giving it internally as an infusion alongside other alteratives such as figwort or burdock, and applying the fresh bruised leaf or a poultice of the dried leaf directly over the swelling.

Conservation. Goodyera pubescens is a slow-growing terrestrial orchid dependent on specific mycorrhizal partners, and wild populations can be sensitive to overharvesting and habitat disturbance, so material should be sourced from cultivated or sustainably managed stock rather than wild-collected where possible.