#folkmedicine

Skullcap, lemon balm, chamomile, rose. Dried, packed loose in a clean pint jar.

Three parts vegetable glycerin to one part distilled water, poured while you stir so the glycerin actually moves into the plant instead of sitting on top of it. Cap it, date it, dark cupboard. Four to six weeks, shake it whenever you remember. Strain through cloth, squeeze hard, bottle. Half a teaspoon under the tongue at the hour your brain decides to relitigate 2019.

Two honest cautions. Buy skullcap from a source you trust — the market has a long history of adulteration with germander, which is hard on the liver. And chamomile sits in the ragweed family, so if that family has ever closed your throat, leave it out and let the other three carry it.

What do you reach for at three in the morning?

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#Herbalism #FolkMedicine #Apothecary #Skullcap #LemonBalm #Chamomile #Rose #Glycerite #HerbalMedicine #Plants #Nature #Photography #Druid #SlowLiving #Queer

Grey alder — Alnus incana, feàrna. For the throat that has been shouting. Or clenching. Or swallowing things it shouldn't have to.

Dried inner bark only — small pieces, aged several months minimum, never fresh. One teaspoon to a cup of water, simmered ten minutes, strained, cooled to warm. Gargle and spit. As an external wash it's good on weepy skin and old-fashioned foot soaks.

Read this part twice. Fresh bark will make you vomit — that is precisely why the traditional preparation insists on drying and aging. High in tannins, which bind iron and blunt oral medications, so leave two hours either side of anything you take on a schedule. Skip it in pregnancy, if you're anemic, or if you're on medication you can't afford to have dulled. And be certain of your identification — do not confuse alder with buckthorn, which is a violent purgative. If there's any doubt, buy the dried bark rather than stripping a tree you're eighty percent sure about.

What do you reach for when your throat's been used hard?

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#Herbalism #Alder #Feàrna #FolkMedicine #Foraging #Botany #Nature #Gardening #Druid #Folklore #Gàidhlig #Photography #Apothecary

It's coming up right now in the dry margins — dirty-white, papery, the kind of flower you'd walk past every day of your life.

Rabbit tobacco. Sweet everlasting. Used across the Southeast for congestion and a chest that won't open, long before anybody wrote it down. Steam, not tea: a small handful of dried flowering tops in a heatproof bowl, boiling water over, towel over your head, five minutes with your eyes shut. Wait until it stops scalding before you put your face anywhere near it. Not for pregnancy. Don't smoke it, whatever your granddaddy said.

There's no Gaelic name for this one. My ancestors never met it, so it keeps the language of the people whose land it actually is. The settlers called it everlasting because it holds its shape all winter — which is an observation or a promise depending on the week you're having.

What's the plant your people reached for, the one that never made it into a book?

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#Herbalism #Herbs #Foraging #Gardening #Nature #BloomScrolling #wildflowerhour #GardensOfMastodon #FolkMedicine #Photography #Botany #Appalachia #Georgia #Solidarity

Wild raisin. Viburnum cassinoides. Withe-rod, and up in the southern mountains they call it Appalachian tea.

Strip the leaves, wilt them a day, then dry-toast in a skillet over low heat, turning the whole time, until they darken and smell of tobacco and hay. Three minutes. Four at the outside. Steep a heaping spoonful in just-off-boil water for five and you get something coppery and faintly sweet.

The toasting is the whole trick. Untoasted, the leaf is flat and green and not worth your kettle. Be precise, though — the famous antispasmodic cousins are cramp bark and black haw, not this one.

What grows near you that your grandmother never had to buy?

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#Herbalism #ForagedFood #WildRaisin #Viburnum #Appalachia #FolkMedicine #HerbalTea #FoodAsMedicine #Botany #Foraging #Plants #Photography