Archive for the ‘Herbs and their uses’ Category

In the 1854 classic Walden, Henry David Thoreau gave us a glimpse of one man’s attitude toward the simple vegetables, plants and herbs that could sustain us in life, which are often shunned while searching for more glamorous and tasty foods. To this, he said “I learned that a man may use as a simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength. I have made a satisfactory dinner of a dish of purslane which I gathered and boiled. Yet, men have come to such a pass that they starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.” I think this statement by Henry David Thoreau could be the basis of many who will go hungry or starve while surrounded by abundant, edible war food in the form of plant life.

A few years ago, when we lived in Leeds, Utah, we had a nice big garden. One of the weeds that seemed to come around every year was purslane. I guess it came to us through the irrigation water. When I first encountered purslane, I got the books out and studied about it. I found out that is was good to eat, so I tried it. It wasn’t the greatest thing in the garden, but in no way was it bad or tasteless. I tried it in soups and salads and even in steamed vegetables. It tasted good in all three dishes. It has kind of a tart taste, but a good flavor.

One day, while I was gathering some purslane for lunch, a nice old German neighbor stopped by to visit and see the garden. He saw me picking purslane and asks me what I was doing. I told him that this was going to be part of my lunch. He exclaimed, “Ach, don’t eat those weeds, throw them away. Thus is poor man’s food.” He said, “Come over and I’ll give you some kohlrabi. Now that is good to eat.” I laughed and said, “I have other things that I can eat, but I want to eat this.” He said, “But those weeds, that’s poor man’s food throw them away.”

I guess I should have told him that almost all vegetables were weeds at one time, and almost all fruits and vegetables growing in a wild condition could be called “poor man’s food.”

I think the lesson we could learn from this is that our usual fruits and vegetables not always available to us. What would happen to us if the supermarket ran out of food? Where would we go? What would we do? Would we recognize purslane, or many others “poor man’s foods” that are growing wild, or would we starve?

Purslane or “pusley,” as it is known in many parts of the country is a member of the portulaca family. It is an annual that grows profusely in good, sandy soil throughout the world. It is a succulent that grows close to the ground. The fat, plump leaves and stems are mostly water. In fact, some studies show it contains over 90 percent water and we all know how very important water is to us all. It is a tonic and blood builder. Its paddle-shaped leaves are fat, shiny and very green. It has a little five-to-seven petaled yellow flower that nestles in a rosette of leaves. The blossom develops into a tiny pod that is loaded with little black seeds. When ripe, the lid pops off and the seeds scatter.

Through purslane is mostly water, each 100 grams contain 2,500 I.U. of vitamin A, 25 mg of vitamin C, 3.5 mg of iron and other minerals.

Purslane is good for urinary problems. The juice is used for strangury, or suppressed urine, when the urine comes out in drops. For centuries they said, “For a burning fever or to cool the liver, chew purslane.” It’s also good for scurvy. The fresh juice, mixed with honey, is good for dry cough and shortness of breath.

Purslane tips are great in a salad with olive oil and vinegar, steamed and eaten like spinach, or cooked as pot herb. Most countries raise it and sell purslane in markets. It can be dug into the soil as a fertilizer. But first, eat it, you’ll like it.

If you talk to the average person about psyllium, it’s most likely they wouldn’t know what you were talking about. However, if you ask them about Metamucil, they’ll say, “every one knows about Metamucil.” Metamucil is a laxative made almost entirely from psyllium seeds. It contains as aspartame to make it food coloring and flavoring, but for the most part, it is ground up psyllium seeds.

The genus or family of psyllium is plantago or plantain as we know it. Psyllium is sometimes called branched plantain. It grows about a foot to a foot-and-a-half tall with small thin strap-like leaves growing in whorls up the stem. The small branches grow out of the leaf axles on the upper part of the stem. On the top or end of each little branch is a pod or capsule. This pod is covered with little tiny blossoms like the other plantain plants. The tiny flower is white, with four small petals. When the blossom drops off, the top of the pod pops off and inside are many little seeds. The seeds are tiny and look like fleas and so the Greeks called the plant “psylla,” which means flea in Greek.

Psyllium has been used as a laxative for over two thousand years. It wasn’t used in this country until after the First World War, when many saw its positive effects on the bowel and brought some home and started using it.

The psyllium seed is remarkable. It contains mucilage that, when combined with water, will swell up to ten times its original size. This wet becomes soft and slick like gelatin and becomes an emollient that lubricates and acts as a laxative.

Psyllium is very gentle to the bowel because it is an all vegetable substance and it has no chemicals to irritate the bowel. Because it holds so much moisture, it has a soaking action in the bowel that helps to break up the old hard fecal matter that is causing constipation.

Because psyllium contains no harmful chemicals, it is helpful in treating colitis, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, hemorrhoids, diverticulitis, and autointoxication. Psyllium seeds are one of the main ingredients in Grandma’s herbal Super-Lax and Slim formulas.

Most folks don’t realize that many of our diseases come from what the doctors call autointoxication. When the bowel becomes constipated and very toxic, it makes the body sick. What happens is the bowel becomes constipated and starts to recycle the toxins through the blood stream and the body. These toxins can weaken and break down many systems in our body. If you don’t keep the bowel cleaned out, it can make you sick and cause all kinds of problems.

In one of our herb classes, a lady told of her daughter who was sick a lot and had trouble with her bowels. She said her daughter would go for a week at a time without having a bowel movement. Then when she would get things broke loose she would have diarrhea for a weeks. Every time the daughter would go to her doctor he would tell her that she should have a colostomy.

One day, a friend of the mother said that the daughter should use some herbal laxatives and she would get well. The mother told her about the doctor wanting to do a colostomy. The friend said to get her daughter some psyllium seeds, some cascara sagrada and some senna. The daughter took the herbs for two months and the mother said she was nearly all better, thanks to the herbs. They gave the mother’s friend a party for saving the daughter from an operation.

The newest thing about psyllium is that it will lower cholesterol. It will also remove catarrh and mucus from the bronchial and sinuses. Not bad for a weed.

An old Latin proverb says, “WHY SHOULD A MAN DIE WHILST SAGE GROWS IN HIS GARDEN?” Now I doubt if the sage plant would keep anyone live much past his given years, but if it can make his life healthier and happier, then it has served man well.

Garden sage is a plant that was used for centuries for almost every known purpose until we go modern and started to use drugs. Now the only thing it’s used for is stuffing on Thanksgiving.

There was a lady who said she sweat buckets. I don’t know about the buckets, but she sure did a lot of sweating, especially when she got a little nervous or had to move around much. She ate quite a lot and was really overweight and she didn’t exercise at all. Even her walking was kept to a minimum. Surprisingly, she was pretty healthy, except for some minor problems. Personally, I think the sweating helped her to get rid of a lot of toxic waste that would have otherwise stayed in her body.

She was told to go on a cleanse each week for a few weeks and also drink a cup of sage tea at least four times a day and exercise just a little. She had a hard time getting into the program and said that it didn’t work. However, one day she finally started to drink the sage tea. It made her feel better, so she started to do the cleanses. In just a little while, she felt a lot better, and you know what? As long as she kept on the program of the sage tea and the bowel cleansing and exercising, she felt great and she didn’t hardly sweat at all.

The common sage is a shrubby, perennial plant that grows wild in many parts of the world; however, in many countries it is cultivated as a medicinal as well as a culinary herb. It grows up to three feet tall, has square woody stalks that are sometimes covered with a fuzzy cotton. The gray green leaves that grow in opposite pairs have a smooth to wooly underneath side and a rough, pebble-like upper surface. The flowers are violet blue and bloom from June until September. They are in arrangements of whorls that grow on the ends of the stock or branch.

Sage will grow in almost any climate, as long as it has some moisture. It is sometimes confused with sagebrush, which is an Artemisia genus. Although the two smell somewhat alike and are the same color, green, and about the same size and have some of the same properties they are said to be unrelated.

Sage is an antiperspirant which reduces or suppresses perspiration; dried up mother’s milk; is an antispasmodic which helps to relieve spasms or cramps; relives nervous stress; is an astringent which draws organic tissue closer together and reduces secretion or discharge; it helps hemorrhaging and women’s heavy periods; acts as a diuretic to aid the kidneys; is a digestant to aid the stomach; it is a carminative to help relieve stomach gas; a tonic to tone up the body; and it can be used as a gargle and is useful for bleeding gums and to prevent an excessive flow of saliva. The dried leaves can be smoked in a pipe as a remedy for asthma. Hot sage tea will cause a person to sweat. However, cold sage tea will lower a fever and reduce sweating.

Gerard says, “Sage is singularly good for the head and brain, it quickened the senses and memory, strengthened the sinews, restored health to those that have the palsy, and taketh away shaky trembling of the members.”

Personally, I like to cook with sage. I take three or four sprigs of leaves, tie them together and put them in a soup. When the soup is done, I remove the leaves. It makes things taste great.

Rosemary has been a herb of prominence for thousand of years. It is not a strikingly beautiful plant, but its fragrant aroma and healing ability makes up for any lack of beauty.

Way back in the early 1200′s, there was a Queen Elizabeth who was the ruler of Hungary. Well, it seemed that the Queen liked to eat tarts and cakes and all that good stuff that makes rheumatism and gout rather unbearable. When she couldn’t stand the pain any longer, Queen Elizabeth put out the word to the whole kingdom. Someone had better come up with a cure for her majesty’s miseries, or some of her loyal subjects would be in a world of hurt.

Well, the history books record that there was a little old gnarled hermit who thought the Queen was a pretty special lady. He hated to see her all crippled up and partly paralyzed with arthritis and rheumatism. He gathered up a whole bunch of rosemary in full bloom and soaked it in some white wine for a few days. He then distilled the oily fluid out and gave it to his beloved Queen. She rubbed this aromatic potion on her hurting and paralyzed joints and limbs. You guessed it. She overcame her paralysis and rheumatism. ( I think she must have changed her diet, too). The story didn’t say what happened to the little old gnarled hermit, but the Queen got so healthy and beautiful that the king of Poland asked her to marry him even though she was seventy two years old.

Rosemary is an evergreen shrub. Some species grow close to the ground and some are bushes that grow several feet tall. The needles or leaves are green and leathery and grow in RE clusters or whorls of one to a dozen on opposite sides of the branch. The underneath side of the needle has an indented vein that is light gray and runs from the tip to the stem. The flower is pale blue to white and grows in raceme or groups out of the end of the cluster of needles. They have two lips and look something like a snapdragon or penstemon. They start blooming in early spring and last until late fall. The scent of the rosemary is close to that of the pine, only spicier and slightly perfumed. Rosemary is sometimes put in scent bags in closets to discourage months. In early times, rosemary was hung around to ward off evil spirits.

Rosemary has been used as a healing herb for many centuries. It is another one of those herbs that is good for many different ailments. It is used as a stimulant to get things going, as an emmenagogue to help female to help female complaints, as a tonic to tone up the body, as an astringent to tighten tissue and stop bleeding, as a diaphoretic to aid in sweating, as a nervine to soothe and build the nerves and help a nervous headache, as a carminative to help expel gas from the stomach or bowel, as an aromatic for a nice smell, as a stomachic to soothe the stomach and help digestion, as an antispasmodic to relieve tension and to work against spasms, and the list goes on and on.

Rosemary and juniper were used to disinfect hospitals in many countries of Europe as late as the Second World War. They would steep teas out of these herbs and the sick rooms were washed down with them. Sometimes a pan of this tea would be simmered to dispel the smell of the stale and foul odor of sickness. Since the time of the Greeks and the Romans, rosemary has been known for its ability to strengthen the memory. One 90 year old said, “I don’t why there’s a fuss about remembering. I just drink my rosemary tea each day. I thought everyone did. We could say many more things like rosemary will help restore hair, soothe the nerves, calm the stomach or aid digestion. We haven’t say said much about cooking, but rosemary is a fine culinary herb.

With all this in mind, I think every home should have some rosemary growing around it.

When Moses was trying to get the children out of Egypt, the Pharaoh said, “No way.” he had a whole lot of free labor in all those slaves. They were able to make a lot of bricks for the Pharaoh. So, the Lord told Moses to throw a handful of ashes in the air where the Pharaoh could see it. Now, I don’t know what kind of ashes they were, but they caused most of those Egyptians to get a bunch of boils. To anyone who has had boils, they know that this is serious business. However, if the Egyptians would have had some potatoes, they could have grated some raw potatoes and put them on the boils and they would have cooled those boils down and pulled a lot of the poisons out.

Also, when another plague of hail and fire came down, those who got burned could have grated some raw potatoes or could have put some real thin slices of potato on the burns. However, back then, I don’t think they had any potatoes in all the land of Egypt.

History says the first potatoes came from Peru in South America around 1532, when the Spanish conquistadors conquered Peru, they found the Incas growing and eating a strange- looking tuber that grew down in the ground off of a root. The potato plant uses this bulb that grows on the root to store starch as a food to sustain the seed, or the eye., for a new plant to grow the next year. This is similar to the wheat kernel storing the flour in the kernel storing the flour in the kernel for its food to start the plant for the next year. Strangely enough, the potato and also the tomato come from the poisonous nightshade family. If you eat the potato vine, the flower of the little berries that grow on the vine or the sprouts, you will become sick because they are poisonous. Because potatoes don’t get sunlight, they are not poisonous. Cut the green part off of any potato. It got out in the sun and it’s bad.

The potato was first brought to Spain and the Old World around 1565. The Irish started to grow potatoes as a food while other centuries still grew them as flowers in a garden. The potato became the national crop of Ireland and was known as the Irish potato. However, in 1845, blight wiped out the potato crop. Over 750, 000 people died of starvation.

In many parts of the world, potatoes are fed to animals. Potatoes ate the third largest crop in the world, and they are still used as a remedy and as an herbal medicine.

Potato juice is a greater cleanser of the body. Caution: It is strong medicine. A little goes a long way. While cleansing, it stirs up a lot of toxins in the body, and if you stir too much too fast, it will make you sick.

Potato juice is best mixed with other juices like carrot, celery, beet or lemon. Some say the juice has helped eczema, nerves, and skin blemishes. This cleansing is due to the high content potassium, sulfur, phosphorus and chlorine in the potato. The juice must be from good, raw potato.

Potato juice is very soothing to the digestive tract. It is used for gastritis, duodenal and gastric ulcers. Eating a raw potato or drinking raw potato juice has been used for rheumatism, lumbago, gout, uric acid, arteriosclerosis and hardening of the arteries. The juice is sometimes used to rub on sore muscles or in a liniment for bruises or stiff joints or arthritis.

An old time remedy was to carry a potato in your pocket to overcome the pain of arthritis. Some folks still chew a small potato for indigestion. Potatoes are about the least expensive, most healing, wholesome food or medicine on the market.

There are many kind of poplar trees in this country. Besides the trees we know as poplars, there are the cottonwoods and the aspens which are also poplars. They all have the genus, or surname, of populus. The poplar tree we will discuss mostly is the quaking aspen, populus tremuloides.

I knew  a man who, at one time, had malaria which he got in the South Pacific during the war. The malaria didn’t bother him much anymore, but he always seemed to feel tired and run down. Even after a good meal, when he felt that he had been well fed, he felt listless and tired. It was suggested that he start taking quinine again in case he was being affected by malaria. However, this only made his ears ring. Someone suggested that he take some tea made from the quaking aspen bark to help the malaria.

The quaking aspen tea was quite bitter and he didn’t like it very much, but he drank it any way. He said it made his stomach feel more settled and he seemed to have more energy. He also said he didn’t seem to sweat as much, so maybe it was helping his malaria. He said after taking this quaking aspen tea and some other herbs, he felt better than he had in years.

Almost everyone has carved their initials in the tender, smooth, white bark of the quaking aspen. They grow in groves on hillsides in and around pine forests. The leaves, which tremble constantly, are almost round or ovate with finely toothed edges. In the fall, the leaves turn kinda orange and then a bright yellow which adds much color to the fall scene. Most of the poplar or cottonwood trees are easily recognized in the spring, because the seed is borne by a catkin or a seed pod that looks like a long wooly worm that is hanging from some buds. This catkin or worm -like seed pod grows longer and looser until it breaks open and the seed comes out on a little tuft of cotton that floats on the spring breezes and covers the ground with what looks like cotton. That’s why some are known as cottonwood trees.

The inner bark, buds and leaves are the parts of this tree that are used. Medicinally, they are used as a stomachic, which aids the stomach and the digestion, as a tonic which tones and builds the body, as an antiperiodic which relieves malarial type fevers and chills, as a balsamic that soothes and heals inflamed parts of the body, as  a diuretic to soothe the urinary tract, and as a febrifuge that helps to reduce most fevers. It is the general opinion of most herbalists that the inner bark of the quaking aspen is one of the best tonics for a person who is over fifty years old.

The bark is gathered and let sit for a year, and then the inner bark or cambium layer is removed. With some tress, like the elm, the inner bark is thick and almost sponge-like, but the aspen tree is different. The inner bark in thin brown stringy sheets almst like paper. This can be gathered and boxed up for future use.

The popular tree has been used as medicine for thousands of years. The balsam poplar is sometimes referred to as “balm of Gilead tree” although balm of Gilead can be made from almost any poplar or cottonwood tree. This inner bark is used in Grandma’s herbal Over Fifty formula because it is good for older folks. Jethro Kloss says “poplar is better than quinine for all purposes for which quinine is used. It is very useful for disease of the urinary organs, especially if weak.”

The poplar is excellent to aid digestion and to tone up a run down condition, either in disease or old age. It is very good in all cases of diarrhea. Poplar is good for acute rheumatism and good in all fevers, such as intermittent fever. White poplar is claimed by many to have great healing powers. Maybe you should go gather some inner bark. You wont be sorry.

The Native American Indians considered pleurisy root as one of the Great White Father to the children of nature. The Indians used it as a tea or chewed the dried the dried root. It was so effective against pulmonary complaints like colds, pleurisy. Asthma, pneumonia, pulmonary catarrh and other ailments of the chest and lungs.

Until popular fifty years ago, pleurisy root was and used for many respiratory problems, and scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, measles, lung fever, bilious fever, typhus and other burning fevers. Pleurisy root, and other herbs like yerba santa, colt’s foot and horehound, affect the mucus secretion of the respiratory system. Mucus must be of the proper consistency to provide adequate protection to the mucus membrane. If it is too thin, it will leave the tissue dry and susceptible to germs and pathogens and not provide proper protection. If the mucus is too thick and heavy, it congests and blocks air passages adding to respiratory problems that cause asthma, catarrhal accumulations and other ailments.

I am reminded of  a story of a man they called “Old John,” who had a real problem with his respiratory system. He was an old bachelor and he lived on the poor side of town . He rattled and wheezed with each breath. It took all of his strength to walk a little way. Doctors had him on many different antibiotics, but none seemed to help him. They only seemed to weaken his immune system. One doctor even said his teeth were poisoning his system, so they pulled all his teeth, but it didn’t help his breathing any. He sounded really awful when he tried to breath. He had to struggle for every breath he took.

One day, a new family moved just a few doors down from Old John. It wasn’t long until the lady was sending her kids to Old John’s place with soup or some vegetables and fruit. Then she made some tea out of vegetable tops and herbs. Two of the herbs she used were pleurisy root and yerba santa. The pleurisy root seemed to clear the phlegm and heavy mucous out of his chest. He didn’t rattle and wheeze so much. The lady made teas and poultices for him and helped him to get rid of the excess phlegm and mucus. When Old John got feeling better and cleaned up, we were surprised to see that he wasn’t even fifty years old yet. Soon he could go back to work and care for himself.

The bad thing about some antibiotics for asthma and other respiratory problems is that they kill bad bacteria as well as bad and break down the immune system; yet they don’t clear the phlegm and mucus out of the air passages. Then the body gets immune to the antibiotics and the problem gets worse.

Pleurisy root is  a good expectorant to clean out the phlegm and mucus from the repiratory passages. It is a diaphoretic to help you sweat, a diuretic to help the kidneys, a nervine to calm and help rebuild the nerves. In large doses, pleurisy root acts as an emetic and purgative to clean out the phlegm and mucus that accumulate in the stomach. It will reduce inflammation in the lungs and in the pleura. It works well with colt’s foot, garlic, ginger, horehound eucalyptus, yerba santa and horseradish.

Pleurisy root is a perennial member of the milkweed family that grows about two feet high and has a large, white, fleshy tap root. It has narrow leaves and orange blossoms that grow in terminal clusters and attract butterflies. It is a beautiful plant. You should grow some in your flower garden.

A friend of mine took his favorite dog on a hunt one day. The dog got bitten on the shoulder by a big diamondback rattlesnake. When he got the dog back home, we put some plantain juice on the bite. The dog kept licking the juice off. We put some plantain juice in a bowl  and the dog lapped it up. Then we smashed up some plantain leaf and put it on the dog’s shoulder for a couple of days. The dog laid around the first day. The second day, she was up and down, but the third day she seemed normal, thanks to plantain.

The Native Americans call plantain “white man’s foot print” because it is everywhere. The palntain you find in the lawn is usually Plantago major. It is a broad-leafed plant that stays low tot he ground, and has a little crooked seed stem that grows up out of the middle of the plant. Plantago lanceolata is usually found in backyards and waste places. It has a long narrow leaf with the veins that run parallel from stem to tip. Some plants will grow a foot tall and the seed stem grows straight up from the middle of the plant sometimes reaching a height of two feet.

My daughter put on an old pair of shoes that was in the garage and she got bitten between the

toes by a big black widow spider. She was going to a dance and didn’t want to take the time to do something about the bite. She started feeling ill and came home within the hour. Her foot was all swollen and red spots were starting up her leg. She had a fever and was quite  sick. We put  a plantain poultice on the bite, then gave her a lot of Vitamin C and calcium along with plantain tea. Next morning, she felt fine and all you could see was a little red spot between her toes. Have you ever had a sting or a bite that kept itching no matter what you did? Well, all you have to do is find some plantain in your lawn, or yard, and bruise the leaf, then rub it on the bite or sting. It will leave a little green spot on your skin, but  will usually take away the itch or hurt for at least twenty- four hours.

Plantain is an infection fighter for the immune system. It fights blood poisoning, kidney and bladder infection, poisonous bites and stings. Plantain is one of the main herbs in Grandma’s herbal Anti formula as it is an herbal antibiotic. A friend told me that she felt to bad she didn’t want to live anymore. She ate a lot of plantain and threw up a lot morbid matter. She got well and is happy to be alive and to feel so great.

The history of plantain goes way back. The Greek physician Dioscorides, in the first century, recommended plantain for many uses such as for healing wounds, fighting infection and as a cure for body sores. Pliny, another early herbalist, states that plantain would cure the madness of a dog. Even Shakespeare recommended plantain for a broken skin. I knew a carpenter who cut himself with a chisel. He didn’t take care of the wound and it became infected, then a red streak ran up his arm and formed a lump under his arm pit. He was worried because he knew another carpenter who had lost his arm the same way. He was told about plantain and how good it was for blood poisoning. He got some plantain, washed and mashed it, then made a poultice and put it on the wound. He also made some plantain tea and drank it. In a few days the man was well.

Plantain is one of those herbs recommended fro many ailments: Poisonous bites and stings, boils and carbuncles, tumors, kidney and bladder infection, inflammation, eczema, thrush, blood poison, yeast infection, malignant bleeding, ulcers, hemorrhoids, bed- wetting, mastitis, poison ivy and many more. Plantain, anyone?

A friend of mine took his favorite dog on a hunt one day. The dog got bitten on the shoulder by a big diamondback rattlesnake. When he got the dog back home, we put some plantain juice on the bite. The dog kept licking the juice off. We put some plantain juice in a bowl and the dog lapped it up. Then we smashed up some plantain leaf and put it on the dog’s shoulder for a couple of days. The dog laid around the first day. The second day, she was up and down, but the third day she seemed normal, thanks to plantain.

The Native Americans call plantain “white man’s foot print” because it is everywhere. The plantain you find in the lawn is usually Plantago major. It is a broad-leafed plant that stays low to the ground, and has a little crooked seed stem that grows up out of the middle of the plant. Plantago lanceolata is usually found in backyards and waste places. It ha a long narrow leaf with the veins that run parallel from stem to tip. Some plants will grow a foot tall and the seed stem grows straight up from the middle of the plant sometimes reaching a height of two feet.

My daughter put on an old pair of shoes that was in the garage and she got bitten between the toes by a bog black widow spider. She was going to a dance and didn’t want to take the time to do something about the bite. She started feeling ill and came home within the hour. Her foot was all swollen and red spots were starting up her leg. She had a fever and was quite sick. We put a plantain poultice on the bite, then gave her a lot vitamin C and calcium along with plantain tea. Next morning, she felt fine and all you could see was a little red spot between her toes. Have you ever had a sting or a bite that kept itching no matter what you did? Well, all you have to do is find some plantain in your lawn, or yard, and bruise the leaf, then rub it on the bite or sting. It will leave a little green spot on your skin, but will usually take away the itch or hurt at least twenty-four hours.

Plantain is an infection fighter for the immune system. It fights blood poisoning, kidney and bladder infection, poisonous bites and stings. Plantain is one of the main herbs in Grandma’s herbal Anti formula as it is an herbal antibiotic. A friend told me that she felt so bad she didn’t want to live anymore. She ate a lot of plantain and threw up a lot of morbid matter. She got well and is happy to be alive and to feel so great.

The history of plantain goes back. The Greek physician Dioscorides, in the first century, recommended plantain for many uses such as for the healing wounds, fighting infection and as a cure for the body sores. Pliny, another early herbalist, states that plantain would cure the madness of a dog. Even Shakespeare recommended plantain for a broken skin. I knew a carpenter who cut himself with a chisel. He didn’t take care of the wound and it became infected, then a red streak ran up his arm and formed a lump under his arm pit. He was worried because he knew another carpenter who had lost his arm the same way. He was told about the plantain and how good it was for the blood poisoning. He got some plantain, washed and mashed it, then made a poultice and put it on the wound. He also made some plantain tea and drank it. In a few days the man was well.

Plantain is one of those herbs recommended for many ailments: Poisonous bites and stings, boils and carbuncles, tumors, kidney and bladder infection, inflammation, eczema, thrush, blood poison, yeast infection, malignant bleeding ulcers, hemorrhoids, bed-wetting, mastitis, poison ivy and many more. Plantain, anyone?

There is nothing like tromping through a pine scented forest with the bed of pine needles beneath your feet. The only thing better is the smell of pine and sage that hang heavy in the air after a rain.

We don’t think of a pine tree being an herb to help give us medicine to make us healthy and strong. However, some Native American tribes got much of their food and medicine from pine trees. Some tribes would make long treks for weeks to get to the pinion forests to get their supply of pine nuts. Besides gathering the pine nuts, they would also gather some inner bark for a food. They gathered the pitch, or sap, for medicine and making arrows. They gathered some tips of new boughs and tender new needles to make medicines and a good tasting tea.

Some tribes of Native Americans would chew pine needles to help get rid of syphilis and other diseases. They would chew the pitch, or resin (gum), for sore throats. They also used the pitch, or resin, to heal cuts and bruises and to make liniments for sore muscles and different stings and bites.

A lady told me how good pine gum is for a poultice to draw out splinters and slivers. Seems that when she was a young lady, she was running down a mountain trail. The trail was steep. She ran so fast she couldn’t make a turn and run into an old dead branch that was sticking out. This sharp old stick stuck into her leg just below the knee. She pulled most of the stick out, except one part that broke off and she couldn’t get that out of her leg. She hobbled back home in much pain. Her mother tried to get the splinter out, but couldn’t. He mother sent the boys out to get some pitch from a pine tree. The boys found out an old pinion pine tree that had a couple of big globs of pinch on it. Her mother warms the pitch up and molded it into the wound over the sliver. After sometimes, when the pitch was set up, the mother carefully removed the pitch and the sliver was sticking to it. Then she made a salve with pitch and other herbs. The salve drew more junk out of the wound as it healed.

There are hundreds of different species of pine or conifer trees. They grow from shrub size to more than 200 feet tall. Most of the different types of woods are used for construction. However, the evergreen family has many medicinal uses.

After Columbus made his first trip to America, many other ships soon made long ocean voyages. On these long voyages, many sailors were deprived of fruits and vegetables. Many sailors died of scurvy because they lacked vitamin C. had they known, they could have taken some pine boughs along and made tea and everyone would have had plenty of vitamin C, with no scurvy and fewer colds.

Some winter survival camps teach how to take the young tips off pine boughs, chop them finely and make a tea. This tea is high in vitamin C. One instructor said that there is no excuse for anyone to have a cold who has access to a pine tree.

Even today, the pine tree is used in many ways. They make it into a cough syrup and have been for generations. They made one such syrup with bark, twigs and pitch of a pine tree, and added wild cherry bark, a sassafras bark and spikednard root. They said that it removed morbid mucous secretions.

The pine is used to make furniture polish, disinfectant soap for the hair and a pine oil soap to scrub the floor. Many people swear by D.M.S.O., which is made from the pine tree.

When you think of the wood, the turpentine, salves, perfumes and lotions, the pine is a very important tree.