I hiked 1/2 mile up the Chestnut Top Trail in the Smokies today. What an abundance of Spring wildflowers I saw!
The "Doctrine of Signatures" is the idea that God has marked everything He created with a sign (signature). The sign was an indication of the purpose for the creation of the item. The Doctrine states that, by observation, one can determine from the color of the flowers or roots, the shape of the leaves, the place of growing, or other signatures, what the plant's purpose was in God's plan. This idea gained popularity during the 1600's and continued to be used for medicinal cures in Europe and Appalachia into the 1930's and beyond. Though the idea has largely fallen out of favor in the face of modern medicine and science there are still people who practice this although finding a D.S. healer is harder these days. When you see plant and flower names which contain "wort" as part of the name it is a holdover from the past and the Doctrine of Signatures. Wort is an Anglo-Saxon word which means "plant" or "flower".