Sanguisorba officinalis L. Rosaceae Cultivar 'Tanna'. Great Burnet, Burnet Bloodwort, Pimpinella. Perennial herb. Sanguisorba is from the Latin 'to absorb blood', officinalis to indicate its long time medicinal use. Distribution: W Europe, Orient, N America. Culpeper makes no mention of it in his Physical Directory (1650), but in his English Physitian (1652) he writes at length, praising its virtues (prepared in a glass of claret) in treating diseases of the heart, driving away melancholy, treating discharges, bleeding, ulcers and preventing the plague. Parkinson (1640) calling it 'Pimpinella sive [or] Sangisorba, Burnet' concurs. Modern Chinese herbal medicine uses this in compounds for the topical treatment of third degree burns. Lyte (1578) also referes to its ability to staunch bleeding, adding that drunk with water 'in which [hot] Iron had often been quenched' works well (see Potentilla thurberi). Lyte also reports that 'some have written that its blood staunching effects are performed if 'the herbe alone being but onely holden in a mans hande ...'. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
