medicinal
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February 7, 2012 | 
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Rowan – Its Berries Catch Birds
Rowan
Mountain Ash, Rowan
ROSACEAE Sorbus aucuparia
Comment
How often does nature not compensate for its bounty by imposing other strictures. The lovely Rowan is no exception to this phenomenon – its small white flowers have a most off-putting smell when approached closely. However, this does not detract from the great attraction of its fruit to bird life, who compensate for the feed by fertilizing and spreading the seeds in their droppings.
Description
A small deciduous tree or shrub with a slender crown, shiny and smooth grey bark and sleek grey/brown twiglets. The alternate odd-pinnate leaves are dark green above and paler below, having 9—19 sessile, lanceolate and sharply serrated leaflets.
The edible fruits – rowan-berries – are small scarlet globular pomes. Their taste tends to the sour and astringent.
History
Rowan comes from the Old Norse name ‘raun’. Although not a true ash, its leaves are similar. The specific name, aucuparia (bird-catching) — refers to the berries being a favourite food of birds and were thus used by trappers as bait for their birding nets.
Rowan bark was used for dyeing and tanning and the flexible sturdy wood was prized for tool handles.
Usage
- The dried fruits or the pressed juice of fresh fruits is used for constipation and kidney disorders. Strictly avoid large doses.
- Ripe fruits are used medicinally. Ingredients include tannins, organic acids, sugars, pectin and vitamin C. These ingredients impart mild purgative, diuretic and general tonic properties.
- Fruits are a raw material for the manufacture of sorbose, a sweetening agent for diabetics.
- The fruits have been used as a laxative and to make drinks to prevent scurvy. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) has also been extracted commercially from them.
- The berries, particularly those of cultivated sweet-fruited varieties, can be used to make syrups, compotes, conserves and wines.
- Berries are also used in certain liqueur manufacturing processes.
Growth Characteristics
Rowan is native throughout the cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, where it grows in woods, scrub, on mountain rocks and by mountain streams, but is rare in lowland areas. The greatest species diversity, with many microspecies occuring, is in mountainous regions of western China and the Himalayas.
Flowering time: May to June – N. hemisphere.
Dog Rose – Mans Herbal Friend
Dog Rose
Dog Rose
ROSACEAE Rosa canina
Comment
A deciduous shrub with arched, downward-curving branches, which are armed with stout hooked prickles. The fruit consists of numerous hairy achenes enclosed in a fleshy, amphora-shaped, bright orange/red casing a.k.a. the well known rosehip.
It is an indication of how blase we can be when this lovely plant is so familiar that many people don’t stop to enjoy these roses. But that is their loss.
Appearance
The plant can vary considerably in shape and form. Leaves are odd-pinnate with five to seven ovate to elliptic, serrated leaves. Petioles and midribs typically bear prickles while the sweet-scented flowers have large canopied pink or white petals.
History
Evidence of Dog Rose hips have been recorded in and around ancient settlements suggesting that the shrub has a long association with mankind.
The provenance of the common name – Dog Rose – is not clear. Popular belief holds that the name is a reference to the medieval Latin rosa canina, stemming from the ancient Latin (originally Greek) word cynorrhodon. The plants root was believed to be used as a herbal remedy to cure the effects of being bitten by a mad – or rabid – dog. Another theory is that the ancient Greeks may have just been denigrating the worth of Dog Rose as a garden plant by using the belittleing term ‘dog’.
Rose Hips
Usage
The hips are the medicinally sought-after elements. Their makeup includes vitamin B complex, vitamin C, carotenes, pectin, tannins, sugars as well as malic and citric acids. The fruits contain fatty oil.
The best-known and widely used herbal remedy deriving from the plant is rosehip tea. which has mild diuretic, astringent, tonic and mildly laxative actions. Fresh hips are an outstanding source of vitamin C. Whether fresh or dried, they are beneficial for convalescents, against fatigue and colds. Rose hip tea is most effective when made by macerating the crushed hips (without the hard achenes) and not by a long boiling process.A decoction from the hips can be used as a gargle for bleeding gums and will alleviate toothache.
Fresh hips are also used for syrups, jams and tonic wine.
Growth Characteristics
Dog Rose grows throughout Europe in scrub hedges and woods. It is the most common British wild rose, though less prolific in throughout Scotland.
Flowering time: June to July – N. hemisphere
Aspen – Balm of Gilead?
Aspen
Aspen
SALICACEAE Populus tremula
Appearance
The alternating, almost circular leaves possess bluntly toothed or wavy borders and emphatically sideways-flattened petioles, which tremble in the least breeze: they adorn a small deciduous tree with flat bark – at the onset yellowish but then developing darkish grey highlights.
The female blooms have purple stigmas. The flowers unfold before the leaves emerge. The fruit is a capsule which releases seeds with a white pappus.
The slightly sticky buds are sturdily oval. Aspen is dioecious with separate male and female catkins, that have purple hairy bracts.
History
Aspen and the archaic version, Asp, are taken from the Anglo-Saxon name aespetoithe tree. The word ‘asp’ was sometimes utilized to indicate tremulous, after the shaking leaves. The particular epithet also identifies this distinctive attribute of the tree.
Usage
Other than on the Continent, Aspen is not widely used in herbal medicine. A better-known resinous product from poplar buds is balm of Gilead, which is produced by the tree referred to as Balm of Gilead (P. gileadensis or P. candicans), from Balsam Poplar (P. balsamifera) or American Aspen (P. tremuloides).
Balm of Gilead is likewise gathered from a North American fir (Abies balsamea). The true balm of Gilead is, however, the resin of tropical bushes or small trees of the genus Commiphora.
Externally compresses, bathtub formulations and treatment-creams are used for haemorrhoids and management of burns. Preparations from fresh leaves are employed in homeopathy.
The leaf buds, sometimes the young bark and the leaves of Aspen, are all employed medicinally. Like the buds of Black Poplar (P.nigra), Aspen buds include an essential oil, bitter compounds, salicin and populin.
Such ingredients provide Aspen powerful diuretic, anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties and the buds are used in an infusion for gout and rheumatism as well as for problems of the urinary tract and enlarged prostate gland.
Growth Characteristics
Aspen grows all over Europe including the British Isles, in open woods, notably on poorer soils. It is also regularly placed in home gardens and avenues.
Flowering time: February to March. (Northern Hemisphere)
Yarrow – First Among Natural Herbal Remedies?.. Part 1
One Of The Oldest Herbal Remedies
Tags: Marshmallow Herb – A Lot More Than Just Candy
Marshmallow Herb
Marshmallow – also althaea root, mallow root, mortification root, Schloss tea, sweet weed, Hock herb.
MALVACEAE Althaea officinalis
Description
A perennial botanical herb with a yellow, branched root, elevated, vertical, leafy stems and substantial alternating, lobed and irregularly toothed foliage.
The stems and foliage are velvety. The milky white or pinkish blooms of these herb garden plants, which are inviting to bees, are lined up in uneven racemes in the leaf axils. The disc-shaped schizocarpic fruit (a capsule) splits into one-seeded nutlets (mericarps). The fruits are usually referred to as ‘cheeses’ because of their rounded structure.
History
Homer’s Iliad - from 2,800 years ago, contains references to marshmallow root as a healing herb.
The familiar soft candy, marshmallow, was initially flavoured with Marshmallow root.
The familiar term ‘mallow’ is a corruption of the Latin term malva for this and similar plants in the Malvaceae family (see also PL 139). Both malva and Malvaceae almost certainly originate in the Greek word malakos (= soft), a reference to the softening and healing attributes of these herbs.
Among its various constituents are sugar, starch, an amino acid (asparagine) and pectin.
Usage
Marshmallow is a popular herbal remedy for diverse conditions and is cultivated commercially in certain countries.
The whole plant incorporates a healing action. But it has got to be without rust.
Marshmallow is regarded as the most vital mucilaginous medicinal herbs mainly because it contains a high proportion of mucilage (flowers around 20 per cent, roots near 30 per cent) and it is incorporated into branded medication and herbal preparations as an ointment, demulcent, antitussive and expectorant.
Marshmallow is employed internally for bronchitis and bronchial asthma and for indigestion and gastrointestinal difficulties.
It makes calming gargles and compresses and poultices for external application. It offers a number of cosmetic purposes too. The roots may be boiled and used like a vegetable.
Growth Characteristics
Marshmallow boasts a wide-ranging distribution from western Europe to Siberia. In the British Isles, where it is native, it is commonplace in salt marshes and on banks nearby the seashore. It is now naturalized to the eastern United States and used for ornamental purposes - foliage and purple flowers.
Flowering period – Northern hemisphere: August to September.
Alder – With An Alter Ego
Alder - Alnus glutinosa
BETULACEAE Alnus glutinosa
Appearance
There are 3 well-known alder plants with a few differing characteristics:
Alder (Alnus glutinosa) A deciduous shrub or medium-sized tree with darkish-brown, fissured bark and glabrous twigs with yellowish lenticels (wart-like components) on the bark. Alder is monoecious; the flowers are borne on the old wood and emerge before the leaves, organized in catkins. The leaves are broadly spherical or sometimes notched at the tip, often doubly serrate, bright-green on both sides and very sticky (viscid) in the springtime. The long, hanging male catkins possess purplish scales and yellow-colored blossoms; the shorter female catkins- are nearly globular, reddish-purple in early spring but they transform into brownish and woody after the seeds are released developing cones or ‘berries’. The fruit is a winged achene.
Grey Alder [A. incana) is similar to Alder however it has sleek greyish bark, its leaves are pointed and are greyish green above and pale below.
Green Alder (A. viridis) is more of a shrub than a tree. Its leaves have a sharp point, cordate base and are green on either side. It grows in mountainous areas in Europe.
History
Alder is indigenous to Europe, Asia and Africa, it is familiar all across the British Isles. The wood is light and easily worked once seasoned. The common designation, Alder, apparently originates from the Anglo-Saxon word alor or aler, and this may derive from an old time German term elo or elawer (reddish yellow), considered a reference to the colour of the fresh-cut timber.
Usage
All species of alder possess similar medicinal properties and are established rustic medications, employing the sticky young leaves and the bark, from felled timber. The constituents include tannins and anthraquinones which provide Alder an astringent effect and a bitter taste.
- The fresh crushed leaves soothe chapped skin.
- A decoction of Alder is utilized externally in the form of a gargle for tonsillitis and as a mouth wash.
- Used to deal with enteritis, severe diarrhoea, fever, colds and rheumatic soreness.
Growth Characteristics
Alder will grow in wet woods and by wetlands and streams.
Alder can flourish in places where the anaerobic or near-anaerobic soil factors – generally due to waterlogging – could swiftly damage and destroy most other tree varieties. It manages this by a symbiotic relationship with a nitrogen-fixing bacterium which occupies root nodules. The bacteria provide the nitrates the tree needs while the tree appears to supply physical and chemical protection to the bacteria.
Flowering period: March to April. (Northern hemisphere)
Green-winged Orchid – Viagra of the Ancients
ORCHIDACEAE Orchis morio
Appearance
The violet-red flowers are borne in a loose, terminal spike. The leaves are lanceolate, broadest at the center and unspotted; the ones at the bottom level are structured in a rosette, those at the summit are sheathed and upright. A perennial herb with spherical tubers and an erect leafy stem. The side petals are curved upward to form a helmet-shaped structure with conspicuous green veins; the lower lip is three-lobed. The fruit is a capsule with numerous very small seeds.
History
They are collected for therapeutic needs only where they still grow abundantly but they have been replaced by other, less-expensive herbal remedies.
Green-winged Orchid is reasonably plentiful in the south of Britain but is rarer in other places. Another indigenous British orchid, Broad-leaved Marsh Orchid [Dactylorhiza majalis), has a far more scattered and local distribution. It can be distinguished from Green-winged Orchid by its split tubers, usually spotted leaves, pinkish-mauve flowers and the side petals which are spreading and not formed into a helmet.
These species along with other orchids are declining in quantities in the wild and many are now protected.
At one time orchids were utilized as aphrodisiacs and the generic name, Orchis, from a Greek word for testicle, pertains to the appearance of the tubers. Green-winged Orchid’s specific name, morio, however, means ‘fool’! A nutritious drink known as salep is still produced from the dried tubers of some orchids, chiefly species of Orchis.
Usage
The tubers are the medicinal elements. Their constituents include about 50 per cent of mucilage that changes by hydrolysis to mannose and glucose, as well as 30 per cent of starch and proteins.
These elements give Green-winged Orchid emollient, stomachic and antidiarrhoeal characteristics and it was previously used for intestinal and abdominal disorders. For more information, check out Online Biology Degree to find classes that can teach you more about the usage of this herbal viagra.
Growth characteristics
Green-winged Orchid grows patchily throughout Europe in dry meadows and pastures, especially on lime-rich earth.
Flowering period: May to June.(Northern hemisphere)
Bilberry, Whortleberry, Blaeberry – Berry Many Names
ERICACEAE Vaccinium myrtillus
Appearance
The alternating, briefly stalked leaves are oval, finely serrate and vivid green; they are easily distinguished from those of Cowberry. The pitcher-shaped pinkish or greenish-pink flowers with rather short turned-back lobes grow singly or in pairs in the upper leaf axils. A low deciduous subshrub with a creeping rhizome and numerous erect, leafy, branched, green and angled stems..The fruit is a globose, edible, blackish berry with a blue-grey bloom.
History
Vaccinium is the ancient designation for this and related plants. The specific epithet refers to the leaves, which are similar to those of Myrtle (Myrtus communis). The derivation of the ‘bil’ and ‘whortle’ in the traditional names is unknown; ‘blae’ means blue-black.
Often associated with improvement of night sight, bilberries are cited in a popular story of World War II RAF pilots eating bilberry jam to sharpen vision for night missions. However, a contemporary study by the U.S. Navy found no such benefit and origins of the RAF story cannot be established.
Although the effect of bilberry on night vision is unproven, laboratory research in rats have provided preliminary evidence that bilberry consumption may inhibit or reverse eye conditions such as macular degeneration.
Usage
- The sweet fruits, which are rich in vitamins, have long been a popular food. They have also been a traditional treatment for diarrhoea.
- The leaves of non-flowering twigs and the fruits are used medicinally. The constituents of the leaves include tannins, organic acids, a glycoside (arbutin) and plant insulins. These substances give the leaves astringent, antiseptic, diuretic and weak hypoglycaemic properties; they are used in an infusion for gastritis, enteritis, and diarrhoea.
- Dried berries are chewed to control diarrhoea.
- They are also incorporated in natural herbal tea mixtures with an antisclerotic action. It is advisable not to take this infusion in strong doses or over a long period of time.
- The ripe berries are used fresh or dried. They comprise of sugars, pectin, organic acids, tannins, mineral salts, vitamins B and C and organic pigments (anthocyanins).
- Wine and an alcoholic extract from the berries also provide a costive action.
- The pressed liquid from the berries and conserves are good for mouth and throat infections.
- The wholesome berries can be enjoyed raw or stewed and made into pies.
Growth Characteristics
Albeit bilberries are indigenous to Europe and grow on humus-rich acidic damp soils in heaths, woods and on moors, they are present in very acidic, nutrient-poor soils throughout the temperate and subarctic regions of the globe. One attribute of bilberries is that they produce single or paired berries on the bush rather than clusters, as the blueberry does.
Flowering time April to June (Northern hemisphere)
