Cowslips and Primroses are two of the cheeriest and prettiest of our spring wild flowers. They have a rustic charm reminiscent of days gone by when they were used much more commonly in medicine than they are today.
Cowslip, Primula officinalis, and Primrose, Primula vulgaris, contain similar properties, being of use for soothing the nerves, easing insomnia and improving headaches. An infusion of Cowslip with Wood Betony is said to be of particular use in headache and migraine. They are both anti-inflammatory and anti-spasmodic, making them useful for muscular pains, rheumatism and gout and an infusion of the flowers of either plant can be used in the bath for soothing these conditions. They have also been recommended for pulmonary problems as both have expectorant properties.
Infusions of Primrose or Cowslip flowers have been used to brighten the complexion and reduce wrinkles. Culpepper recommends a Cowslip ointment saying, ‘Our city dames know well enough the ointment or distilled water of it adds to beauty or at least restores it when lost.’
Both flowers are associated with youth in the Victorian language of flowers, Cowslip also being associated with winning grace and primrose carrying the meaning, ‘I can’t live without you.’ Both have also been associated with faeries in folk tradition and magic.
The flowers and young leaves can be used in salads, though they are potentially allergenic so always do an allergy test first by rubbing a little of the juice from a leaf on the inside of the lips and seeing how you react.
Both plants used to be very common but cowslip especially is much rarer now due to changing habitat and over harvesting as well as pesticide and agrochemical use. Therefore it’s best to grow these plants in your garden if you wish to use them for food or remedies.
Maria Treben rates Cowslip highly as a remedy for insomnia. Here is her recipe for a sleep inducing tea:
50g Cowslip flowers
25g Lavender
10g St John’s Wort
15g Hops
5g Valerian
Pour 1/4 litre boiling water over a heaped teaspoon of the herbal mix, allow to infuse, add honey if desired and drink in sips before bed. She says, ‘This tea should be preferred to all chemical sleep inducing remedies. Sleeping pills destroy the nervous system whereas this tea removes nervous complaints.’ It is a fairly pokey mix though so check with a herbalist before taking (especially if on medication) or stick with a more gentle blend of herbs such as chamomile, lime flowers and cowslip.
For a easy approach to making a tincture, loosely fill a jar with fresh cowslip flowers, pour vodka over them, cap and leave in the sunlight for fourteen days. Take 3 teaspoons a day as a soothing nervous system tonic. Cowslip was also commonly made into wine.
Primrose flowers also make a lovely infused vinegar which can be used in cooking or salad dressings.
Enjoy these sweet spring soothers and remember to harvest them with care and gratitude, never taking too much from one area.
hi lucinda, i would love to ask you where you find out about which plant is ruled under!? i found it very interesting when you wrote about cleavers being ruled by the moon and by the element water! where can i find out more info on other plants and their ruling planets…as i would like to find out about dandelions, wild garlic and nettles….. thankyou xx
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Lovely post, Lucinda. Cowslips and primroses are some of my favourite flowers – it makes me so happy when they start flowering. We lost all our cowslips on the farm when I was growing up – the cattle and sheep ate them all! Now the fields are meadows again, they are re-appearing in ever increasing numbers, which is wonderful. One thing which saddened me was a recent visitor to my sancuary asking if the primroses were evening primroses! Love Maria Treben’s recipe – a really heavy duty tea! If you don’t sleep after that there must be something seriously wrong! I don’t think I’d be putting all those herbs together as a first try. Hops alone has helped me on a really bad night, but it shouldn’t be touched by anyone prone to depression and SJW will make things worse if you’re already taking SSRI drugs.
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Hi Holly, Culpepper’s your man for planetary correspondences, The Complete Herbal has lots of details. His understandings about herbal energetics are occasionally quite different from modern ones though, for example he says Nettle is hot and dry and ruled by Mars where as a lot of modern herbalists count it as cold and dry. TCM counts it as a Yin tonic, cooling and moistening. They are all right in a way, it’s heating and drying because it helps remove the coldness and damp from winter when eaten in spring and its cooling and yin because it builds blood and nourishes. It’s astringent so generally thought of as drying but feeds tissues so can be seen as moistening. Ahh the wonder of herbs! Not many herbalists work with astrology now, or at least not that I know of. I use it to help with my understandings of the plant energetics, as with Cleavers where it just made so much sense to me, but I don’t use it until I have a sense of how the influences are working. Hope that’s helpful!
Sarah, I’m glad you love these cheery yellow fellows too! You are quite right about the Hops and St John’s. Hops can even cause bad dreams so I might be tempted to omit it altogether from the recipe if I were making it for someone. Cowslip, Lavender, Avena and Balm might be a nice, though less potent, alternative.
x
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Hello Lucinda,
It is wonderful to see those spring flowers – they always feel very brave, coming up while its still cold! 🙂 I like your suggestion for an alternative bedtime tea. I tried Maria Treben’s tea a couple of years back (I blogged about it: http://apotheblogary.blogspot.com/2008/03/tea-for-good-nights-sleep.html) and found it rather potent. But I don’t generally have trouble sleeping, so a nice cup of chamomile is usually enough for me. 🙂
Warm wishes,
Elizabeth
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Oops, that link didn’t come out right: http://apotheblogary.blogspot.com/2008/03/tea-for-good-nights-sleep.html
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Thanks for the link Elizabeth, that’s a lovely post and a beautiful photo of the herbs for the tea. As you say in your quote from the book, Treben’s tea was for a man with very bad insomnia so I guess he needed something really powerful to knock him out!
I have only tried a variation on the tea recipe, though I thought I should reproduce it faithfully here, because I can’t bear the flavour of hops, it’s far too overpowering for me!
Thanks for the input 🙂
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Hi Lucinda 🙂
Lovely post, having just seen swathes of cowslips along some of the Derbyshire roadsides and wondering whether the days of homemade fresh cowslip wine will become achievable again it was nice to read that someone else herladed cowslips as well. Could I just enter into the discussion with the following caution…
If you’re a first time user of valerian do a test first before bedtime. I was suffering from really bad insomnia and was perscribed valerian tablets and also a valerian tea mix. It turned out that I’m one of the minority of valerian users where it acts as a stimulant and not a sedative, so the valerian kept me awake and made a bad situation worse until I realised what it was that was making things worse.
This isn’t something I read a lot about, and it can be a problem so you need to test valerian’s effects if you’ve never used it, before you embark on taking it to soothe or sedate.
Most people dislike the smell of valerian, I have a theory that those who dislike the smell take benefit from the sedative effects and those that love the smell as I do take benefit from it’s stimulating effects. I’ve met many people who dislike the smell and use it in sleep and relaxing teas, but so far met no one who has the same effect that I do. If anybody does then please get in touch as I’m curious to see whether my theory is true or not.
Debs
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Hi Debs,
I love your theory! I know a couple of folk who find valerian stimulating, I’ll see if I can track them down and question them further. Personally I can’t bear the smell and do find it sedating.
Valerian is a specific for people with a Vata imbalance and is often pared with Ashwagandha for them. It’s not recommended for Kapha people because they are already sluggish and ‘earthy’ so don’t need to be further sedated. Pitta people are already quite hot so can be aggravated by it’s warming qualities, these are the ones that tend to get stimulated by it I believe.
x
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The theory is charming . I may be the exception that proves (or disproves) the rule! Valerian most definitely keeps me awake, but I don’t like the smell at all. Have heard people describe it as “dirty socks”. I often have insomnia, and it’s very hard to find an herbal sleep formula that doesn’t contain valerian. If you go beyond single-herb formulas, there it is. If you know of one that can be purchased (vs. homemade), please let me know. I sometimes take melatonin, and/or a tsp. of inositol powder dissolved in water.
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What a lovely post. I really enjoyed it. Thanks.
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I currently reside in New York. And I am finding it very difficult to find cowslip tea.. any suggestions where I may find it in England?
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Hi Heather, It is hard to get hold of but you can buy it from Baldwins, here:
http://www.baldwins.co.uk/herbs/herbs-roots-bark/herbs/baldwins-cowslip-flowers-primula-versis
All the best.
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Reblogged this on Nature Diary.
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Thanks for Identifications on your photographs and I am a new follower with LOVE Intended, I can learn so much from you! I am native gardening and making potpourri from my flowers. also essential oils, medicinal, you are right up my alley!
Smiles, Cyndi
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can anyone tell me why cowslips never grow alongside primroses? Yet often appear to like similar habitats?
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