1.  I love coltsfoot rock.  1d per stick when I was a child, from the corner shop!!  …  Only one sweets manufacturer still makes it using real coltsfoot extract.  They are Stockley’s, Blackburn, Lancs.  All other brands are made with just liquorice extract.  They used to make it in Oswaldtwistle, my birth town, but the retro sweets businesss is so successful they had to move to a bigger, more modern, facility.  I think I was weaned on coltsfoot rock and Marmite! [e-mail, December 2025].

2. A cough medicine is still produced from coltsfoot in Anglesey.  Indeed, my sister, who lives on the Lleyn Peninsula, has a bottle of the stuff. a thick brown liquid, in her kitchen.  Sometime last year I saw a coltsfoot sweet for sale on a market stall at Ashbourne, but it didn’t taste particularly pleasant [Nottingham, May 2014].

3. [From my mother, b. 1915, Durham coal fields, 1950s] in early spring the coltsfoot was a plant of much interest as a ‘mirror’ could be made from the new leaf. The grey soft coating  could be peeled back to make a frame inside the new green of the glass. With the right questions pictures of the future could be seen; girls might look to see their future husbands. Although I think some of the chants and rhymes have gone as they were ‘secret’ to certain groups.[Appleshaw, Hampshire, January 2014].

Further memories of this practice would be appreciated.

4. I’m 87 and was born in Lancashire … One of her [my mother’s] favourites was when she gave me the vile sticks of sulphur to eat, actually given to me by an uncle, whose ‘treat’ I didn’t like to spurn, she knowing full well that I would refuse them if she gave them to me. Apparently she thought the sulphur ‘cleared the blood‘! Very, very occasionally as an alternative a stick of coltsfoot rock would be produced – I liked them (still do) though I don’t know if they were/are of any medicinal benefit [Street, Somerset, September 2012].

5. During World War II coltsfoot (Tussilago) was dried and used as a tobacco substitute. Smoling makes you cough. In days gone by coltsfoot was used as a cough cure and present day cough medicines sometimes take their name from the Latin above [Saddleworth, Greater Manchester, 1998].

6. Coltsfoot tea – very good for coughs [Portland, Dorset, March 1991].

7. In 1949 I was staying with a friend in London who provided lodgings for European students. One of these was visited by her parents from the Oslo area. They brought with them a bunch of coltsfoot flowers. These had never struck me as something to pick and they explained that they were eagerly (and traditionally) sought for as the first sign of spring [Manx Museum, Isle of Man, March 1990].

8. For bronchitis – simmer a handful of coltsfoot leaves in a quart of water and allow to cool. Take a small dose every two hours until relief is obtained. The mixture can be sweetened with honey and used as a gargle [Langtoft, Humberside, July 1985].

Images: Tooting Common, London Borough of Wandsworth, March 2014; upper inset, Garnethill Park, Glasgow, September 2017; lower inset, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, April 2024.