Sassafras

Fragrant Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) is a culinary and medicinal plant. Its leaves thicken stews and soups, as in gumbo - they create file powder. The bark and rootbark release a familiar “root beer"-like scent when scratched or scraped. This is due to the presence of safrole, a compound with a complicated legal history. Safrole was banned in the 1960s due to research pointing to hepatotoxic effects. Safrole is also a precursor to the manufacture of the drug MDMA, and as such its trade is heavily monitored. Sassafras’s medicinal uses include diuretic, anti-inflammatory, detoxifying and pain-relieving properties.

Spreading Dogbane

Spreading dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium) is a poisonous plant that also has lore as a physical and spiritual medicine. Indigenous peoples like the Haudenosaunee, Chippewa and Potawatomi know how to prepare the bitter, toxic root into medicine for heart, kidney and digestive. issues. They also associate the plant with times in one’s life that require personal transformation. Western herbalist Matthew Wood reports this plant being called “Werewolf root” for this reason. Some Western herbalists make a flower essence (an energetic preparation containing no physical material from the plant) from the plant and use it in times when one must decide to either “change or die.” I’ve also heard about it being used for chronic Lyme disease.

Honeysuckle

The amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) is not the same species as the valued Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), but both produce fragrant flowers that can be taken . The Japanese honeysuckle bloom is the traditional Chinese medicine Jin Yin Hua, which belongs to a category of herbs used to clear heat and resolve toxicity. While the Amur honeysuckle doesn’t have the same longstanding reputation, I’ve harvested the buds to make flavored honeys.

Wild Geranium

Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum) or cranesbill is an astringent used all the ways astringents can be used - to stop bleeding, arrest diarrhea, and to treat wounds. The root and leaf are both medicinally useful, containing tannins and gallic acid. The young leaf can also be used in moderation as a salad green. Delicate pink flowers appear later in the season.

Periwinkle

Periwinkle (Vinca minor) is a common ground cover. It has traditional use as a medicine for the memory and brain. Vincamine, found in its leaf, has been studied for Alzheimer’s treatment, as well as headache and vertigo. It seems to work by enhancing blood flow and thus oxygenation to the brain. This might explain its concurrent history in heart conditions as well, as well as its folk use in cancer treatment.

Nettles

Nettles (Urtica dioica) all grown up! This is the perfect stage for harvesting the plant for its leaf. So much nutrition is packed into these leaves - calcium, magnesium, iron, and tons of protein, along with vitamins A, C, D, E, and K. Nettle pesto, nettle soup, nettle tea all create distinct forms of enjoyment. The leaf can be harvested for food up to the creation of flowers, which happens along its stem - afterward, it can still be used for tea, but if eaten it may irritate the kidneys. It’s also a valid time to use the nettle for its sting, which can be an arthritis and frozen-joint cure.

Burdock

Big-leafed burdock (Arctium lappa) is a whole-plant medicine. The leaves have topical use in healing skin conditions. The seed is an energy/kidney tonic in Western herbalism (and a rash-venting diaphoretic, Niu Bang Zi, in Eastern herbalism). And the root is a medicinal vegetable! “Gobo” is antioxidant- (quercetin, luteolin, and phenolic acids) and inulin-rich, Its traditional category of use is as a “blood purifier.” Modern research backs up its use as a detoxification aid for the liver and skin.

Jewelweed

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), seen here in baby form, is soothing first aid for red hot bug bites, cuts, scrapes, and most famously, poison ivy. Many wild plant aficianados joyfully report that the two grow side by side, which is sometimes true! Jewelweed is used as treatment and prophylactic for this purpose. The leaf of this plant contains lawsone, an anti-histamine, anti-inflammatory compound.

Wild Carrot / Queen Anne’s Lace

Wild Carrot (Daucus carota), or Queen Anne’s Lace, is the same species as the domesticated carrot, as can be observed most beautifully when leaving purple carrots in the garden to overwinter; if the two carrots cross, wild carrots will be seen with variations of purple in their flowers for a generations after. The Wild Carrot has an affinity for the urinary tract and reproductive system. Infusions of the aboveground parts treat UTIs. The tiny seeds that form within the nest of a flower are a birth control method - chewing small handfuls throughout a day, every day, creates thin, watery cervical fluid incapable of sustaining sperm.

Violet

Sweet violet, with its edible flowers and leaves, is full of nutrition and medicine! Viola odorata is considered a cooling and moistening remedy in Western herbalism, and is high in mucilage and vitamins A and C. Its leaves have historical use as a lymph mover, respiratory remedy and cancer treatment. Violets are said to have a medicinal affinity for swellings and lumps, which its bumpy roots remind us of. The Asian version of the violet, Zi Hua Di Ding (Viola philippica), is also known to clear heat and relieve swellings in Chinese medicine.

Trillium

Beautiful Trillium (Trillium erectum and grandiflorum), seen here protecting its blossom from the rain, is a medicinal plant that most herbalists I know have never used, due to its status as declining in certain areas. The rhizome has a long history of use in gynecology. One of its common names, Birthwort, speaks to it use in childbirth, especially in controlling postpartum bleeding. This astringent nature also lends itself to curbing loose stool. Modern research shows Trillium’s promise in cancer treatment and neuroprotection in diseases like Alzheimer’s. But in the traditions I was trained in, Trillium’s primary use is as a source of beauty and amazement.

Solomon’s Seal, False Solomon’s Seal

Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum biflorum) and False Solomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosum) look alike at this stage - a positive ID will be possible later in the season when the two plants flower. The true Solomon’s Seal creates flowers and fruits all alongside the underside of the stem, whereas the “lookalike” produces flowers all clustered on the end of the stem. Thankfully, the two plants are similarly edible as asparagus-like shoots when they first emerge from the ground, and the rhizomes of each also have some properties in common: these herbs moistens the joints and connective tissue and are used after deep injury, bruising, or surgery.

Yellow Dock

Yellow Dock (Rumex crispus) is a common garden weed, insisting its rightful place as human food and medicine. The root is a gentle digestion-stimulating bitter and laxative - one of the most gentle laxatives in Western herbalism - as well as a high-iron nutritive, used to make anemia-correcting syrups. The young leaves are a sour and tasty addition to salads.

Sweet Woodruff

My favorite Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum) recipe gives instructions for packing dried applies into a wooden box filled with this herb in autumn, and coming back in winter to harvest the apples, which will have taken on the scent of pineapples. That scent is due to the presence of coumarin in this Galium-family herb. Sweet Woodruff has been used traditionally to flavor wine and beer, imparting into them some sedative, stomachic and blood-thinning properties. In earlier times people looked to this herb as a first aid plant, though this use is now far more commonly bestowed onto other herbs.

Plantain

Ubiquitous plantain (Plantago major) is a major first aid plant. A picked leaf, chewed and spat onto an insect bite, can immediately soothe the itch or sting; pressed onto the skin, it can also draw out anything that’s been injected below the surface. This is also a tasty plant whose leaves can be added to fresh juices and salads. Drawing, calming, cooling plantain is indispensable for any cut, scratch, or burn. Its rattle-like stalk of seeds that arises later in the year reminds us of its history of use as snakebite remedy. The seeds themselves are a form of mucilage that have especially been used to treat urinary tract pain and inflammation. In Chinese medicine, plantain seed is called “che qian zi” and is categorized as an “herb that drains dampness,” also known as a diuretic.

Cinquefoil

Cinquefoil (Potentilla simplex), literally “5-leaf,” is an ARFA (another Rose family astringent). The leaves can be decocted and used to calm inflamed joints and gums, and also for burns. Taken internally, it can help tense muscles (and people) unwind. Often plants that have parts of 5 have a history of magical uses. For example, cinquefoil’s association with relaxing physical tension has been interpreted metaphysically as well. Stories tell of cut sprigs of cinquefoil being ritually placed on top of documents that represent difficult and tense situations, such as divorce papers or a work contract, followed by a resolution of the situation the paperwork represents.

Ground Ivy

Some medicinal plants have such rich and varied histories that it’s hard to name something they haven’t been used for. Glechoma hederacea or ground ivy is one of these plants. It has been used for brewing beer, for treating congestion, cancer, inflammation, and parasites. One could use an infusion of ground ivy for digestive tract diseases just as easily as one could use it to treat eye inflammation or expectorate phlegm. It has a menthol-like smell when crushed.

Bee Balm / Wild Bergamot

A familiar mountain dweller in our area, bee balm or wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) is recognizable at this time of year by the subtle violet coloring in its petioles and by its strong oregano-like scent when crushed. As its scent suggests, it shares compounds in common with oregano essential oil, such as thymol and carvacrol. This plant is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial and can be used for bacterial, fungal, viral, and parasitic infections. It’s also a tasty cultinary herb and tea, spicy and flavorful. Because the plan is both delicious and has a history of use in treating burns, it is a natural choice for the kitchen herb cabinet.

Wild Strawberry

Wild Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) is a woodland Rose family plant. And yes, it does make edible strawberries! The leaf is a mild astringent, and can be used for a tart and tasty diuretic tea that can also tighten mucous membranes, useful in cases of diarrhea. An infusion of the leaves can also be made into a skin-tightening serum or combined with the fruit to make a skin mask. The leaf and fruit are also a potent source of antioxidants and vitamins.

Japanese Barberry

This prickly shrub found on the edges of forests is now known as ‘invasive’ as the proportion of forest edge in our world grows over time - a fate shared by many other edge-dwellers. But Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii) is has much to offer human society. The yellow root contains berberine, a chemical compound that has both antimicrobial and blood sugar regulation properties. Those with diabetes and prediabetes and anyone with a stubborn infection would be well advised to get to know this plant. The leaf contains a compound that when added to the root, prevents the development of antimicrobial resistance.