Rumex flexuosus. Runa. NZ dock.
Māori names
Common names
Description
Runa: "water or juice from the dock plant" - in "Notes from Hawkes Bay" by Māori Boy (26 Dec 1899). Beattie
Medicinal
Children applied sap to abrasions (Best 1906)
Green leaves used on boils. Renewed from time to time ( S. Neil, Opotiki, 1941).
Moist inner shoot of dock used on cracked lips. Juice of leaves used on abrasions, wounds, cuts, pierced ears etc. but best used as a poultice to draw poison from festered sores and boils (Adams 1945).
A decoction of dock roots said to clear the bloodstream of impurities. Helpful for varicose veins (Collier 1959).
See Riley 1994 for information on medicinal uses of related plants elsewhere in the world.
Metadata
44d1d78c-5336-44b0-a570-668eed6466ed
name
28 May 2007
12 June 2020