ABSTRACT
Speakers of different Mediterranean languages called these plants their linguistic equivalents of milkwort (wort, plant) long before the Dutch herbalist Rembert Dodoens published the Latin name in 1554. Henry Lyte’s translation of Dodoens’s Dutch text on Polygala says that it “engendreth plentie of milk; therefore it is good to be used of nurses that lack milk.” Others following this idea include Italian poligala, Spanish hierba lechera (milk giving herb), Portuguese erva leiteira, and French latter (milk giver). Gaels also call them lus a’bhainne (milk herbs). In spite of these names and beliefs, there is no experimental evidence that the plant extracts increase milk flow.
