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The Marvellous Milk Thistle

Posted in Herbs, Milk Thistle on 13 June, 2011| 28 Comments »

Milk Thistle is a herb that nearly everyone has heard of, even those who aren’t interested in herbal medicines. Having become fashionable of late for its supposed ability to prevent hangovers, it’s available in every health food shop and chemist. However Milk Thistle has been used in folk, as well as official, medicine for thousands of years, primarily as a tonic for the liver and gallbladder but also as a more general aid to digestion and, as the name suggests, as a galactagogue or stimulant of nursing mothers’ milk.

Milk Thistle is a member of the Asteraceae, or daisy family, and is native to Mediterranean Europe and the Middle East though it can now be found growing wild in most of Europe and much of the world. Its beautiful spiny leaves are veined with white, said to be the milk of the Virgin Mary which explains one of it’s other common names, St. Mary’s Thistle. Its Latin binomial is Silybum marianum or Carduus marianum, depending on the source . 

Today we primarily use the seed though in the past all parts of the plant were used either as food or medicine. Culpepper used decoctions of the root, the young leaves were boiled as a vegetable and the flower heads apparently eaten like artichokes.

Mrs Grieves includes the following wonderful quote in her Modern Herbal. “Westmacott, writing in 1694, says of this Thistle: ‘It is a Friend to the Liver and Blood: the prickles cut off, they were formerly used to be boiled in the Spring and eaten with other herbs; but as the World decays, so doth the Use of good old things and others more delicate and less virtuous brought in.'” Oh dear, what would they say of modern eating habits I wonder?!

Milk Thistle is one of the most important liver remedies we have due to its ability to both protect the liver from potential toxins and help regenerate healthy cells. It has been found useful in a variety of liver and gall bladder conditions such as cirrhosis, hepatitis, gall stones, fatty liver and poisoning. In fact it is still used today to treat poisoning from amanitas such as the death cap and the destroying angel.

Milk Thistle contains powerful anti-oxidants including silymarin flavonoids which protect liver cells from damage by any number of potential toxins such as pollution, alcohol, drugs and metabolic wastes. They not only increase resilience of liver cells but also stimulate protein synthesis which helps new healthy cells to be formed. This is why people like to take it before and after having a big night out, though of course it works much better when taken for a stretch of time rather than as a one off to counteract an evening’s indulgence!

Milk Thistle can help lower blood fats and improves the removal of fats from the system by stimulating the bile. It’s also very anti-inflammatory and has been used with success in inflamed skin conditions where liver congestion is thought to be a factor. It also helps protect the kidneys and has a beneficial action on the immune system.

Milk Thistle is generally considered rather bland in flavour, though some herbalists refer to it as sweet whilst others believe it to be slightly bitter. It is certainly not as bitter as many of our traditional western liver remedies making it more useful for those with a cold constitution or people who are depleted and in need of building as well as detoxification. It is moistening and Matthew Wood recommends it for people with dry constipation due to liver congestion and lack of bile. In such cases the stools will be hard and small (rabbit droppings!) or they may also be pale in colour due to lack of bile. They might also float rather than sinking which can indicate poor fat absorption.

Milk Thistle seeds whole and coarsely ground.

There are a number of ways you can integrate Milk Thistle seed into your life. It can be taken in larger therapeutic doses for specific conditions, best to consult a herbalist or do lots of research in such cases, or it can be used in smaller amounts on a regular basis as a preventative and for general maintenance of good health.

The constituents in Milk Thistle don’t extract well in water so making teas and decoctions is not the best way to use them. Ideally a tincture or ground seeds is the way to go. If you are looking for a more complete nutritional and building medicine then you can’t beat the seeds and they are also useful for people who can’t tolerate alcohol as is often the case in those with compromised liver function.

I buy milk thistle seeds by the kilo and grind them in my blender, a couple of hundred grams at a time to maintain freshness. Make sure if you do this that you grind a little at a time to avoid overheating and damaging the seeds. I use 1 or 2 teaspoons a day in food, sprinkled on soups and salads or blended into smoothies. I’ve also been adding it to home made crackers with a bit of powdered Reishi extract, a perfect way to love your liver.

Milk Thistle Smoothie:

1/2 cup of oats
1 banana
1 dried fig
1 teaspoon ground milk thistle seeds
1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder
500ml Almond milk or other milk of choice

This makes a lovely breakfast drink which I’ve been having often recently.

There is a wealth of information available on Milk Thistle as its effects and constituents have been well studied so I’d urge you to find out more if you are interested. Despite my dislike of all the marketing hype of recent years, I do think this herb is so useful for our modern lives which are full of stress and environmental toxins, many of which can have interactions with each other. And any excuse to have a yummy smoothie is alright with me.

References:

Botanical illustration of Milk Thistle courtesy of Wikipedia
David Hoffman – Medical Herbalism
Matthew Wood – The Eathwise Herbal
Thomas Bartram – Bartram’s Encyclopaedia of Herbal Medicine
Mrs Grieves – A Modern Herbal
A.K. Tillotson – The One Earth Herbal Sourcebook

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By Sun And By Moon – May Blog Party

Posted in Blog Parties, Flower Remedies, Rose, Valerian on 21 May, 2011| 8 Comments »

This month our blog party is being hosted by the multi-talented Sarah over at Tales of a Kitchen Herbwife with the topic of Flower Remedies.

A flower remedy is a very subtle form of medicine that works on shifting mental and emotional patterns which may be the cause of unhappiness or physical ill health. The flower is infused in water, usually in bright sunlight, and the resulting remedy is thought to contain the beneficial qualities of that flower on an energetic level.

Flower remedies tend to divide herbalists into two camps as there is no accepted scientific rationale for how they work. It’s possible this may change at some point however as we discover more about such things as the memory of water and the effect that subtle energetic signatures can have on the healing process. In Masuru Emoto’s inspiring book, Messages from Water, he records images of the crystals formed from samples of water exposed to different words, images and music amongst other things. One of his experiments involved exposing water to chamomile and fennel and the resulting water crystals give us a fascinating insight into how flower remedies might possibly be working with us.

Crystals from water exposed to chamomile.

Crystals from water exposed to fennel.

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For now however I content myself with the fact that flower remedies seem to work well for many people and that I myself have experienced a huge amount of benefit from their use.

Flower remedies are a subject close to my heart as they are really where my journey into plant medicine began over a decade ago. I discovered the Bach flower remedies in my local health food shop and began reading and studying about them and slowly adding each remedy to my collection. I also began making my own remedies from flowers in my parents’ and neighbour’s gardens. I still have a bottle of the first essence I ever made, a spring daffodil remedy, though I have not used it in years. From the Bach remedies I went on to using the Bush remedies which I studied both here in the UK and in Australia when I was in my early 20’s. Nowadays I mostly use a series of essences I have made over the last 5 years or so from local wild flowers along with some Bach remedies from Healing Herbs and tree remedies from Green Man Essences.

We all know the joy of looking at a flower in bloom, it can dispel our feelings of gloom or despondency and make the world seem a brighter place. This is a subtle kind of healing, our presence and conscious awareness of the beauty around us in that moment  shifts us away from negative thought patterns. For me, flower remedies work in a similar way. When we take a few drops on our tongue, we are imbibing something of the beauty and unique qualities of that flower which can help replace the vibration of fear or anxiety with a moment of clarity and peace. This is why flower remedies are said to work better if you take small doses frequently rather than fewer, larger doses as each time we take a small amount we are shifting ourselves away from the negative state. If we continue to do this over a matter of weeks or months then the more positive state becomes habitual for our minds. The mind is a creature of habit and the more we replace a negative thought habit with a positive one, the more natural it will become for us.

Early in the year, whilst hanging out with my favourite Elder tree, I received a clear impression that this year I should focus on making moon remedies, that is flower remedies infused with moonlight rather than sunlight. I loved this idea and have been impatiently awaiting the few clear nights we’ve had around  the times of the full moons. This last fortnight has seen me make two new remedies, one by sun and one by moon.

First was a Wild Rose remedy. Roses are one of the most joyful sights of the English hedgerows, the ones around us have been spectacular this year, and roses are a flower I never tire of making essences from.

Rose is of course the flower of love and all rose remedies will open and heal the heart in some way. I find the wild rose has all the simplicity, joy and innocence of youth and as such it helps to bring us back to a time when love was a more natural way of being, rather something we had to strive for. With all it’s prickles and tendency to ramble where it will over the hedgerows there is also much of the resilience and fearlessness of youth about this plant which is common as a weed but still carries a rare ethereal beauty. I also find it a very spiritual remedy, helping to clarify and lighten my awareness and facilitate meditation.

This remedy was made using the sun method which I have explained in detail here.

Valerian is the Queen of my garden at the moment and I’ve been enchanted by how she shimmers in the pale moonlight. So I wondered out a few nights ago, torch in hand, and set some flowers infusing

Valerian by day.

As I was working the next day I decided to leave it out all night, collecting it after three hours would have meant too little sleep for me to be able to function! So I gathered it up just as dawn had broken. I don’t think any of the neighbours spotted me at this early hour, rummaging about on my knees dressed in my husbands boxer shorts and T-shirt but, if they did, it will no doubt only confirm what they suspect already.

And by night.

The moon’s energy is so different from that of the sun that the resulting remedy, though similar in many ways, felt like it had a different mode of action. It felt more softly diffusive than the solar remedies, not so distinct in its properties but like it slowly seeped through onto the different levels of being.

The leaves of Valerian are dark, moist and dense yet the flower heads grow so tall and upright. They seem very strong and vital yet the individual flowers themselves are the softest and palest of pinks.

To me it seems like a remedy which helps us to rise above negativity and transform dark thoughts into clarity, understanding and love. One of the aspects attributed to the moon is that of seeing clearly during the confusion and darkness of the night which would contribute to this facet of it’s healing qualities.

The Valerian flowers grow tall on fairly fine stems and the pale flower heads open up to the sky. The leaves however grow close to the ground and the roots are strong. Reflecting these qualities I feel that Valerian flower remedy would be especially helpful to ground those who are spaced out or would benefit from being more rooted in the here and now.

Flower remedies are a wonderful addition to any medicine chest. they can help to calm and centre, to inspire and uplift and they can be made from any flower that calls you. Dr Bach’s vision was that his system was simple enough for us all to be able to use to treat ourselves and our families. Flower remedies can also be used with pets and with plants too,  watering well with rescue remedy is helpful for a plant that has been newly transplanted or is stressed for some reason.

Don’t forget to read all the rest of the entries for this months flower remedy inspired blog party, the links to which will be posted on Sarah’s blog on Monday.

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A Pearl In Every Cowslips Ear

Posted in Cowslip, Spring, Teas, Wildcrafting on 16 May, 2011| 6 Comments »

This spring the hills around my home have been literally carpeted with delightful and cheery cowslips. This beautiful wild flower is not as abundant as once it was and needs protecting so it is best grown in your garden for harvesting. If you had been out walking on this part of the South Downs recently however, you might be forgiven for thinking cowslips were as common as nettles.

Also known as Heaven’s Keys or Fairy Cup, Primula officinalis/ veris, is a wonderful soothing nervine herb with sedative and anti-spasmodic properties. The flowers contain flavonoids which are anti-inlammatory and for the best medicinal action should be collected without any of the green parts. I usually dry the whole head though as I am only really after a nice soothing addition to my teas.

Cowslip makes a lovely tea with chamomile for soothing anxiety and irritation and is ideal drunk before bed for it’s sedative and sleep enhancing properties. I wrote another post about the benefits of cowslip this time last year which you can read here.

The roots contain saponins which make them useful as a stimulating expectorant in coughs and bronchitis though care must be taken as large doses could cause vomiting. I have never worked with the roots before so would be interested to hear from anyone who has. I would caution against collecting cowslip roots from the wild however (it is actually illegal to dig up the plants) in order to preserve them as much as possible.

The main way I use cowslip  flowers personally is in tea blends. It combines nicely with chamomile, oatstraw and other relaxing herbs. We have been enjoying an infusion of cowslip, rose and lemon verbena before bed which is both delicious and relaxing.

I also really like cowslip infused in oil for cosmetic use. This one was infused on a sunny windowsill for 10 days, plenty of time for delicate flowers like these. I strained it this evening and will be whipping it up into a batch of face cream along with cowslip infusion later in the week.

I mentioned in my post last year that Culpepper wrote of cowslips affiliation for the complexion saying ‘Our city dames know well enough the ointment or distilled water of it adds to beauty or at least restores it when lost.’ Mrs Grieve also shares this wonderful quote by Turner in her Modern Herbal, ‘Some weomen we find, sprinkle ye floures of cowslip wt whyte wine and after still it and wash their faces wt that water to drive wrinkles away and to make them fayre in the eyes of the worlde rather than in the eyes of God, Whom they are not afrayd to offend.’

Cowslip wine is a country favourite which Maria Treben recommends for strengthening the heart and nervous system. This lovely image of making cowslip wine is from Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes by Beatrix Potter and is available here.

In my recent post on spring flowers I quoted Ariel’s song from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and this time I shall leave you with these lovely lines from A Midsummer Night’ Dream, the words of a young fairy in conversation with that mischievous rogue Puck.

And I serve the Fairy Queen
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be.
In their coats spots you’ll see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours.
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.

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Elder Leaf Oil And Blooming Flowers

Posted in Elder, Home Remedies on 10 May, 2011| 10 Comments »

There’s always a point in the herbal year where I realise that everything is growing, blooming and fading so quickly and I have not been organised enough to make all the medicines I have planned. With all the delightful warm weather this spring it’s got to that point earlier than ever before!

Seeing my first nettles in flower gave me a shock this week, I have made some nice tinctures but haven’t dried even a single plant yet. As many of you probably know, nettles are said to become irritating to the kidneys after flowering due to the presence of cystoliths.

I managed to dash out on May day weekend to collect elder leaves for making infused oil and salves before the flowers burst fully into bloom this week. If you live further north and your elders aren’t quite flowering yet then it’s not too late to make some elder leaf infused oil which is great as an all purpose healing salve for rubbing onto bumps, bruises, bites, minor wounds and chilblains. David Hoffman writes, “some reports hold that elder leaf may be effective as an ointment for tumours” which is particularly interesting and Gabrielle Hatfield states that it was used as an insect repellent as well as a treatment for bites. Both these uses were new to me so I look forward to trying them out.

I made this oil by covering the fresh leaves in olive oil in an ovenproof pan, putting the lid on and letting it macerate in the oven on the lowest heat for three hours. I usually infuse my leaves using the double boiler method which I wrote about here but this new dish lets too much steam in which risks ruining the oil so I opted for the oven method instead. The oil came out a delightful deep, dark green and feels full of healing virtues.

Several herbalists recommend using vaseline as a base to infuse elder leaves and elder flowers. I would recommend staying away from petroleum based oils and jellies as they prevent the skin from breathing, a vital function where healing is needed.

Energetically speaking the leaves are best harvested before flowering as the plants put their momentum into the blooms after this point. I’m not sure if anyone has measured the difference in chemical constituents but it makes sense to me that this would be so. I was just in time as all the local Elder’s have begun flowering now. Which means that along with the Wild Roses that are newly decorating the hedgerows there’s even more medicine making to be getting on with.

A herbalists work is never done!

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Beltane Hawthorn Remedy

Posted in Flower Remedies, Hawthorn, Tree of the Year on 5 May, 2011| 15 Comments »

Sunday was May Day or Beltane, the traditional Celtic fire festival that marks the beginning of summer. It was a beautiful day which gave me the perfect opportunity to get out and make a Hawthorn blossom remedy.
Though it has long been associated with Beltane, it’s been rare in recent years that the Hawthorn has been in flower this early. This is how the Hawthorns looked on the 3rd of May last year.

This year they came into bloom in late April and were in the finest of forms by May Day. Their heady scent instantly lets you know when the Hawthorn is in flower.

I wrote about the mythology and medicine of Hawthorn blossom last year in this post and now is the perfect time to be gathering the buds, blossoms and leaves to make a fresh tincture.

Making a flower remedy on Beltane itself seemed like too good a chance to miss so I dragged myself from bed (it was Sunday) and got set up so my remedy had several hours to steep in the early morning sun. I have full instructions on how to make a flower remedy here if you are new to the process.

Hawthorn as a flower remedy is equally concerned with the heart as when it is used medicinally as a whole herb, though of course it works on a very subtle level. My personal experience is that it relaxes the whole chest area, allowing us to let go and let the love that is naturally present in us all come to the fore. It helps heal deep emotional wounds and brings the space in which forgiveness can occur. There is also a calm sort of joy about this remedy, as it opens your heart a little half smile creeps upon your lips without you even noticing. Blissful.

Use it whenever negative feelings cause you or others to shut down and turn inwards or when the heart needs a little extra support to heal from grief.

Or simply use it for no other reason than that it is beautiful.

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Ground Ivy For Ailments Old And New

Posted in Ground Ivy, Herbs, Spring, Wildcrafting on 22 April, 2011| 5 Comments »

In spite, or perhaps because of, it’s ubiquity at this time of year, Ground Ivy is a herb that has fallen out of fashion in these modern times when the more exotic a herb is, the greater its value is esteemed to be. Many of the older herbals speak highly of it however and it certainly earned its place in folk medicine for the treatment of a variety of ailments. Glechoma hederacea, as is its official title, was also known as ale-hoof due to its uses in brewing ale, or gill-go-by-the-ground, from the French, guiller, to ferment.

Gerard, writing in the late sixteenth century, described it thus, “Ground Ivy is a low or base herb; it creeps and spreads along the ground hither and thither, all about, with many stalks of uncertain length, slender, and like those of the Vine, something cornered and something reddish.” He classed it as hot and dry and recommended its use primarily for tinnitus, eye problems and as a cleansing agent. He gives us this lovely description of a remedy for the eyes, “Ground Ivy, Celandine and Daisies, of each a like quantity, stamped and strained, and a little sugar and Rose water put thereto, and dropped with a feather into the eyes, takes away all manner of inflammation, spots, webs, itch, smarting, or any grief whatsoever in the eyes.”

Here in the South Downs, as in much of the UK, it certainly grows ‘hither and thither’ and is looking beautiful at this time of year with its classic mint family hooded flowers adorning every roadside and path. April/ May is the best time to harvest the areal parts whilst it is in full flower and highly aromatic. The taste is very pungent, hence why it is generally considered heating and drying, though other herbalists have called it cooling, primarily due to its bitter and cleansing properties. Hilda Leyel informs us that it was once so popular and so widely on offer as a blood tonic “that it was one of the London street cries.” She also recommends it for tinnitus as well as for coughs and colds.

Hildegard von Bingen believed that it removed bad humours from the head which closely relates to its most common use today. Colds, catarrh, sinusitis and bronchial congestion are all conditions currently still treated with Ground Ivy. It is a mild expectorant with anti-catarrhal and anti-inflammatory qualities making it useful in some cases of hay fever. It contains many of the constituents common in other Lamiaceae, or mint family, plants such volatile oils and triterpenes which are thought to be anti-inflammatory. Its astringent and anti-inflammatory properties might also help to explain why it was found to be useful for eye problems and its anti-catarrahal nature could explain why it helped certain cases of tinnitus, probably those where congestion was a factor.

Ground Ivy also has a good reputation as a valuable tonic for the kidneys and bladder. Bartram says it is supportive to primary treatment in kidney disease and has been used with success for cancer of the bladder, though he gives no more information than this. It certainly has diuretic properties and has been used in the past to treat cystitis. Mrs Grieves writes, “As a medicine useful in pulmonary complaints, where a tonic for the kidneys is required, it would appear to possess peculiar suitability, and is well adapted to all kidney complaints.” This is particularly interesting as in both Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Iridology there can be an important link between these organs. In TCM the Lungs are said to direct Qi  from the breath down to the Kidneys which then hold the Qi.  If the Kidneys are compromised and unable to fulfil this function properly it will result in chest congestion and trouble breathing.  Ground Ivy therefore sounds like an ideal herb in such a case.

Finally, many herbalists have recommended its use as an astringent and anti-inflammatory for the G.I. tract where it tones and soothes in cases of gastritis, haemorrhoids, IBS and diarrhoea.

A tincture can easily be made via the folk method which involves filling a jar with freshly picked and chopped plants- leaves and flowers- then covering in vodka and leaving to steep for a fortnight before straining out the plant material.

References:
John Gerard – Gerard’s Herbal
Mrs C.F. Leyel – Herbal Delights
Mrs Grieve – A Modern Herbal
Thomas Bartram – Bartram’s Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine
Gabrielle Hatfeild – Hatfield’s Herbal
Tobyn, Denham and Whitelegg – The Western Herbal Tradition

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Spring Foraging For Food And Medicine – April Blog Party

Posted in Blog Parties, Herbs, Spring, Wildcrafting on 17 April, 2011| 9 Comments »

This post is my offering for the April Blog Party, hosted by Leslie at Comfrey Cottages on the topic of Spring Foraging, Wildcrafting and Gardening. Check her blog on the 20th to see the links to the other posts.

Invasive they may be, but many of the plants that take over the hedgerows and waste ground, not to mention our gardens, at this time of year are also exceptionally useful, full of health giving properties and, in some cases, also delicious.

At the moment I’m particularly enjoying liberally lacing my salads with the lovely Jack-By-The-Hedge, Alliaria petiolata, also known as garlic mustard because of it’s distinctive taste of, yes you guessed it, garlic and mustard.

According to ‘wildman’ Steve Brill, “This despised invasive plant is actually one of the best and most nutritious common wild foods.”

Mrs Grieve writes “The leaves used to be taken internally as a sudorific and deobstruent, and externally were applied antiseptically in gangrenes and ulcers. The juice of the leaves taken alone or boiled into a syrup with honey is found serviceable in dropsy. Country people at one time used the plant in sauces, with bread and butter, salted meat and with lettuce in salads, hence it acquired also the name of Sauce Alone. The herb, when eaten as a salad, warms the stomach and strengthens the digestive faculties.”

Most pungent herbs have an affinity for the digestive system as they are heating, thus stoking the digestive fires and promoting flow of digestive juices. They also help to thin mucus which is important in many spring ailments such as hay fever and sinus congestion.

The photos above were taken a week ago but now all the plants except those in deepest shade have begun to bloom. The flowers are also edible and look lovely sprinkled on salads, soups or other dishes.

Apart from sliced finely in salads and grain dishes like quinoa or millet, I have used garlic mustard to make an infused vinegar and as part of my Spring tonic formula, see below. Steve Brill also uses the root which he says has a horseradish flavour, though this is something I have yet to try.

Garlic Mustard infused vinegar and Spring tonic.

The idea for this Spring tonic came from my friend Therri who is full of inventive herbal inspirations. She makes hers from nettles, ramsons and ground ivy, all found growing together and then tinctured together to make a base formulas for people suffering from spring allergies and the like.

Just by my house is a little copse where cleavers, nettles, ground ivy and garlic mustard all grow up together so I decided these four would make the base for my own Spring tonic blend. I don’t usually tincture things together, preferring to do them separately then blend where appropriate. In this case however part of the magic is in the togetherness, using a community of spring plants that grow close by where you live or practice will be particuarly beneficial for people of that area.

A community of Spring tonics; nettles, cleavers, ground ivy and garlic mustard.

Another plant that I have been eating this spring is ground elder, though possibly with something more akin to grim determination than actual enjoyment. I must confess I don’t find it as delicious as some of the other wild greens around at this time of year but, in small quantities, it can be quite palatable, especially blended in soups. It’s also good as a cooked green and theres a nice recipe on Eat Weeds for stir fried ground elder and tempeh which you can read here. I also came across a ground elder and vanilla muffin recipe here, will wonders never cease?!

The reason I am persevering with this particular wild edible is simple, my garden is riddled with it.

When my Dad, a gardener by trade, came to visit soon after we moved in last year, he took one look at it and proclaimed, “you’re going to have to use Round-up on that.” “No!” I cried, “surely I can manage it organically.” He laughed.

So you see, at stake here is not only the organic status of my garden but also my pride.

Ground elder was originally introduced to the UK by the Romans, and much like its benefactors, it proceeded to take over and has proved even harder to be rid of. They used it as a salad crop and it was said to help gout and arthritis too. Though I have been assured that its not really strong enough to be of much use medicinally, I can imagine that regular eating of the plant would work as a preventative, only because it’s pungent taste is not dissimilar to a strong parsley or celery seed, both of which have been used to treat similar conditions. Perhaps I will try a little bit of tincture just to experiment and I am sure it would make a nice infused vinegar.

It seems to me that there are very few invasive weeds that do not have some use or other, many in fact being the most useful plants we have. And you know what they say… if you can beat ’em, eat ’em.

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Hedgerows In Bloom

Posted in Blackthorn, Trees on 14 April, 2011| 3 Comments »

My train journeys this week have been an absolute pleasure due to the beauty of the hedgerows at this time of year. Everywhere Blackthorn has blazed into great clouds of white blossom making the landscape sing with the rising energies of Spring.

Here the fresh verdancy of the young Hawthorn leaves mingles with Blackthorn blossom and the golden puffs of Pussy Willow.

A small deciduous tree, Blackthorn often grows with Hawthorn but is easily distinguished from it by the fact that that it’s blossom arrives before the leaf where as the leaf of the Hawthorn comes out before the blossom. When it does come into leaf they are small, oval and darker than Hawthorn’s deeply lobed leaves.

Blackthorn, known as Straif in the Celtic Ogham or tree alphabet, has been typically associated with the dark half of the year and with the mysteries of the unconscious mind. Long regarded as a powerful magical ally it was much maligned by the superstitions spread by the Church during the witch burning times.

Despite it’s association with all things dark and mysterious, Blackthorn is one of the first plants to bring us the glimmer of Spring and shows us well how dark turns to light, and back again, with the turning of the year. In her brighter aspect she earned a place alongside Hawthorn in the May Day festivals where she was known as ‘the Queen of the Woods’. Blackthorn can help us attune to the rhythms of nature and is also a powerful ally to help us transform negative emotions into sources of strength and compassion.

Pussy Willow is also bedecking the hedgerows with colour and vitality. To me they so well express the vitality of Spring with their vigorous upward growth and explosive yellow flowers.

How beautiful it looks against the backdrop of blossoming Blackthorn.

In other news, this month Leslie over at the lovely Comfrey Cottages blog will be hosting the April blog party on the 20th. She says:

“I have chosen for a theme Spring Wild foraging/Wild crafting and Spring Herbal Gardening I am hoping that everyone who wants to be able to participate has a spot they can forage in, but if not, I think by including the herbal gardening in the theme all should definitely be able to participate who want to :)”

Click here to find out more.

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Lesser Celandine For Treating Figs

Posted in Herbs, Home Remedies, Lesser Celandine, Spring, Wildcrafting on 10 April, 2011| 4 Comments »

Lesser Celandine or pilewort, as it more commonly known, grows freely in woodlands and other moist, shaded places and brightens the way whenever you pass it by. It’s Latin name, Ranunculus ficaria, refers to the resemblance of its tubers to figs and an old common name for it was figwort (not to be confused with the plant more commonly  known as Figwort, Scrophularia nodosa). Piles, or haemorrhoids, for which the plants got its modern common name, also used to be known as figs, so this usage for our pretty spring friend is nothing new.

In Mrs Grieve’s classic, A Modern Herbal, she tells us, “Wordsworth, whose favourite flower this was (in recognition of which the blossoms are carved on his tomb), fancifully suggests that the painter who first tried to picture the rising sun, must have taken the idea of the spreading pointed rays from the Celandine’s ‘glittering countenance.’ ”

It is true that this little flower arrives early in the spring, appearing almost like a symbol of hope for the warmer days to come.

Used mainly to treat non-bleeding haemorrhoids and a sore or itchy anal area, it is oft quoted that  the main indication for this plant came about from the doctrine of signatures as its bulbous tubers are not dissimilar to the appearance of piles. Many years of use however, as well as a modern understanding of its constituents, back up this traditional insight. Pilewort contains tannins and saponins and is both astringent and demulcent, so toning and soothing to inflamed or irritated membranes.

In the past an infusion of pilewort was commonly taken internally as well the the ointment applied topically but these days it is mostly the ointment that is favoured.

Bartram recommends making an ointment by macerating one part whole fresh plant whilst in bloom to three parts of benzoinated lard. I stuck to making an infused vegetable oil via the heat method.

After harvesting the whole plant – roots, leaves and flowers – I washed them thoroughly to get rid of the tenacious clay soil that stuck between each nodule and then spread them out to dry off in the dehydrator for a couple of hours. If you don’t have a dehydrator then just blot them dry as best you can and leave to wilt slightly overnight. This reduces the water content of your herb and helps prevent rancidity. I then infused the herbs in sunflower oil in a bain marie for several hours on a low heat. You can read my detailed instructions on how to make an infused oil here.

Many people combine the infused oil with horse chestnut oil or tincture to make a nice astringent ointment but, as I have none at present, I came up with this alternative.

Fig Ointment:

40ml pilewort infused oil
20ml plantain infused oil (just use extra pilewort if you have no plantain oil).
20 ml calendula infused oil
10g beeswax
5ml self heal tincture
5ml witch hazel
10 drops lavender essential oil
10 drops geranium essential oil

Melt the beeswax in a bain marie and add the infused oils, stirring until fully mixed. Add in the tinctures and witch hazel and whisk or blend with a hand blender until fully incorporated. Stir in essential oils and leave to set.

Apply liberally several times a day to affected area.

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Tree Of The Year – Spring Hawthorns

Posted in Hawthorn, Tree of the Year, Trees on 3 April, 2011| 8 Comments »

What a pleasure it has been to watch the emerging of the Hawthorn leaves this month. The trees I am observing for the Tree of the Year project were a little behind their more sheltered relatives but now they too have begun to burst into life.

Over the past couple of weeks they have been slowly opening out of their protective buds and are now adorning the escarpment and hedgerows with the fresh green vibrancy of spring.

At this time they are just perfect for adding to spring salads as they are still very tender and delicious, as spring wears on the leaves become too tough to be enjoyable. In olden days they were referred to as ‘bread and cheese’ because they were such a staple of country diets and were often added to a cheese sandwich!

In this salad I combined them with finely sliced wild garlic-mustard, sorrel leaves, dandelion leaves and handful of chickweed. Adding chopped almonds and seeds with a dressing of cleavers infused vinegar and a drizzle of olive oil made this a lovely side dish.

 

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