Jewelweed

Botanical Name: Impatiens capensis Meerb. (Spotted Jewelweed) · Impatiens pallida Nutt. (Pale Jewelweed)

Family: Balsaminaceae (Touch-me-not family)

Other Names: Touch-me-not · Spotted Touch-me-not · Wild Balsam · Balsam-weed · Speckled Jewels · Silverweed · Quick-in-the-hand

Parts Used: The fresh stems, leaves and juice, used on the skin

Quick Look

Jewelweed is the juicy, orange-flowered wildflower of damp, shady ground, and the old country answer to poison ivy. Crush the stem and rub the cool juice on the skin as soon as you can after touching poison ivy or stinging nettle. It also eases bug bites, hives and other itchy rashes. It is a fresh-plant remedy for the outside of the body only.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Poison ivy. Its great use. The crushed plant or its juice, rubbed on skin that has touched poison ivy, was said to give prompt relief. It works best put on right away, to lift the plant's oil off the skin before the rash sets in. An old saying holds that wherever poison ivy grows, Jewelweed grows close by.

Nettle stings, bites & hives. The juice is rubbed on stinging nettle burns, insect bites and hives to quiet the itch and sting.

Ringworm, athlete's foot & warts. The fresh juice was applied to ringworm and warts, and it is used today on athlete's foot.

Sores & eczema. Used to cleanse foul sores and on salt-rheum, the old name for eczema, either as the juice or as a poultice of the plant boiled in milk.

Piles. The fresh plant simmered in lard made a well-regarded ointment for piles.

Old internal use. A decoction was once given for jaundice and dropsy. Taken by mouth the plant purges and brings on vomiting, and that use was dropped long ago.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Poultice · Wash

• Fresh plant: Break a stem, crush it with the leaves, and rub the juice over the skin. Or mash the plant and lay it on as a poultice.
• Wash: Chop the fresh plant, cover it with water, and simmer it into a strong tea. Cool, strain, and bathe the skin.
• Ice cubes: Freeze the tea or the fresh juice in an ice-cube tray, so there is Jewelweed on hand when the plant is not growing. Rub a cube over the rash.
• An old ointment: The fresh plant simmered in lard and strained.
• Store-bought: Jewelweed soaps and salves are sold for poison ivy.

Cautions

• For the outside of the body only. Taken by mouth it is a strong purgative and emetic.
• Safety in pregnancy and nursing has not been established. Talk with a knowledgeable herbalist or care provider first.
• Be sure of the plant before you use it.
• Poison ivy on the face or eyes, over a large part of the body, or with trouble breathing needs medical attention.

Know the Plant

Jewelweed is a tender annual, two to five feet tall, with watery, almost see-through stems swollen at the joints. The thin, oval, toothed leaves shed water, and held under water they shine silver. From midsummer until frost it bears hanging, slipper-shaped flowers with a curled spur, orange with red-brown spots in Spotted Jewelweed and pale yellow in Pale Jewelweed. Hummingbirds visit them. The ripe seed pods burst at a touch and fling their seeds, which is why it is called Touch-me-not.

It grows in moist, half-shaded places, along streams, ditches and wood edges, throughout northern and eastern North America. Both kinds are used in the same way.

A Little History

Jewelweed is a native American remedy. Native peoples used the sap of the stem and leaves for hives, poison ivy, nettle stings and other skin troubles, and settlers took it up. King's American Dispensatory (1898) recorded that "The bruised plants or the juice applied to parts poisoned by rhus, give prompt relief," rhus being the old name for poison ivy. The old physicians also gave it by mouth, but Maud Grieve judged that use dangerous, and it has stayed an herb for the skin.

Joe Pye Weed

Botanical Name: Eutrochium purpureum (L.) E.E. Lamont (older name Eupatorium purpureum)

Family: Asteraceae (Aster/Daisy family)

Other Names: Gravel Root · Sweet Joe Pye Weed · Queen of the Meadow · Trumpet-weed · Gravel-weed · Kidney-root · Purple Boneset

Parts Used: Root and rhizome

Quick Look

Joe Pye Weed is the tall, mauve-flowered wildflower of late-summer meadows, and its root is the herbalist's Gravel Root. It is a kidney and bladder herb before anything else. Reach for it when there is gravel or small stones, and when the bladder is sore and irritable, with a constant urge to go and little passed.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Gravel & stones. Its great use, and the reason for its name; gravel is the old word for sand and small stones in the urine. It is taken to ease the pain as they pass and, by keeping the urine flowing, to help keep new ones from forming. It was thought to suit best scanty, reddish urine that leaves a red, sandy sediment.

An irritable bladder. A superior remedy for a painful, irritable urinary tract. It is used for painful, frequent urination with a feeling that the passage is blocked, for a hot, sore bladder with cloudy urine, for pain and weight in the low back running down to the bladder, and for bed-wetting from an irritable bladder.

Dropsy. Dropsy is the old name for swelling from water held in the body. Gravel Root was given when the kidneys were sluggish, to carry the water off and then to tone the kidneys so that it did not gather again.

Gout & rheumatism. An old remedy for both, taken to help the kidneys carry off uric acid.

Men. Used for the lingering discomfort of prostate trouble once the sharp stage has passed, and it was said to help impotence somewhat.

Women. Used for a weak, irritable womb, for painful periods, and for bladder trouble that comes from a displaced womb. The old physicians also gave it for the irritable bladder of pregnancy, to women prone to miscarry, and to strengthen weak labor pains; herbalists today do not use it in pregnancy.

Fevers. The use that gave it the name Joe Pye: taken to bring on a sweat in low fevers.

Chest. It has served well in long-standing coughs, asthma and whooping cough that hangs on.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Decoction · Tincture

• Decoction: 1 teaspoon dried root to a cup of water. Simmer, covered, 15–20 minutes. Drink 1 to 2 cups a day.
• Tincture: 1:5 in 25% alcohol, ¼ to 1 teaspoon, three times a day. The old physicians gave far less, 5 to 15 drops.

Cautions

• Some herbalists have raised the question of whether the root holds the alkaloids found in Comfrey, which can be hard on the liver. This has not been established. Herbalists generally take Joe Pye Weed for a few weeks at a time and then reassess. If you have liver trouble, talk with a knowledgeable herbalist first.
• Avoid it in pregnancy, because it was given to stimulate the womb in labor. Safety while nursing has not been established. Talk with a knowledgeable herbalist or care provider first.
• Buy the root from a seller you trust. Boneset and other cousins have been sold in its place.
• Kidney stones with severe pain, fever, blood in the urine, or being unable to pass urine need medical attention.

Know the Plant

Joe Pye Weed is a stout perennial, five to seven feet tall, with a green stem that is purple only at the joints. Long, toothed, lance-shaped leaves stand in whorls of three or four around the stem. From July to September it carries large, domed clusters of tiny mauve-pink flowers that smell of vanilla and draw butterflies. The root is blackish and woody, with many long, dark-brown fibers.

It is native to eastern and central North America and grows in moist, rich ground, in low meadows and woods. Several close cousins share its name. Spotted Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium maculatum) has stems spotted or solid purple, and Hollow Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium fistulosum) has hollow stems. The old root diggers gathered Spotted Joe Pye Weed along with it, for the same uses. Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) is a white-flowered cousin and a different herb. Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), an unrelated plant, is also called Queen of the Meadow.

A Little History

Joe Pye Weed is a native American remedy. Native peoples used it for kidney troubles and fevers, and the settlers learned it from them. King's American Dispensatory (1898) recorded that the name "is said to have become attached to it through an Indian of that name, who lived in New England and employed it as a diaphoretic in low fevers," a diaphoretic being an herb that brings on a sweat. The name was in use by 1818, and in 1824 the plant was reported in western Massachusetts as a remedy for typhus fever. Researchers have since traced the man to Joseph Shauquethqueat, a Mohican leader of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, who lived from 1722 to about 1809 and sometimes went by Joseph Pye, though nothing sure is known of his doctoring. The root was listed in the United States Pharmacopoeia from 1820 to 1840, and root diggers were once paid 2½ to 4 cents a pound for it.

Juniper

Botanical Name: Juniperus communis L.

Family: Cupressaceae (Cypress family)

Other Names: Common Juniper · Juniper Berry

Parts Used: The ripe blue berries, which are really small, fleshy cones. The needles are used in steams and baths.

Quick Look

Juniper is the prickly evergreen whose blue berries flavor gin and wild game. It is a warming, drying, stimulating herb. Reach for it when the kidneys and bladder are sluggish, when the stomach is gassy and slow, and, rubbed on, for cold, aching joints. It is a strong herb, taken in small amounts for a short while.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Kidneys & bladder. Its chief use. Juniper stirs up kidneys and a bladder that are weak and sluggish, and it was valued most for long-standing trouble, particularly in old people. It is used for a bladder that is irritable with frequent urging, and herbalists today use it for urinary infections. It suits cold, slow, lingering complaints, not hot and sudden ones. It gives the urine a scent of violets.

Dropsy. Given along with other diuretics to carry off water held in the body.

Digestion. A warming remedy for gas, bloating, indigestion and a weak stomach.

Joints & muscles. Taken for gout and rheumatism, to help the body clear uric acid, and rubbed on as an oil to warm cold, stiff, aching joints and muscles.

Women. Used to bring on delayed menstrual flow, and a warming juniper oil is rubbed on for cramps.

Chest. Steam from the needles is breathed in to clear congestion, and in France the berries were given for chest complaints.

Skin. Used to clean wounds and on fungal infections of the skin.

Food & drink. The berries flavor gin and season venison and other meats, about 10 crushed berries to a pound. In Sweden a juniper beer was counted a healthy drink.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Tea · Tincture · Oil Infusion · Steam

• Tea: 1 teaspoon lightly crushed berries to a cup of boiling water. Cover and steep 20 minutes. One cup, twice a day.
• Tincture: 1:5 in 45% alcohol, 20 to 40 drops, three times a day.
• Infused oil: 1 part juniper to 5 parts oil. Rub it into sore, cold muscles and joints, or add a little to a bath.
• Steam: Put juniper needles in a bowl of hot water and breathe the steam for a stuffy chest or head.
• Which berries: Use only ripe, blue berries.

Cautions

• Juniper stirs the kidneys, and herbalists do not use it where the kidneys are inflamed, infected or diseased, since it can irritate them.
• Herbalists generally take it for a few weeks at a time, six at the most, and then give it a rest.
• Avoid it in pregnancy, because it stimulates the womb and was used to bring on menstrual flow.
• Safety while nursing has not been established. Talk with a knowledgeable herbalist or care provider first.
• It may lower blood sugar, so herbalists advise care alongside diabetes medicine.
• Be sure of your juniper. Some kinds are harmful, among them Savin (Juniperus sabina) and many of the junipers planted in landscaping.
• Blood in the urine, fever, or pain in the back or side needs medical attention.

Know the Plant

Common Juniper is an evergreen, usually a low, spreading shrub under five feet tall, though in some places it grows into a small tree. Its stiff, sharp needles stand in whorls of three, and unlike other junipers it keeps its needles all its life instead of turning scaly. The bark is thin and shreddy. The berries take two or three years to ripen, to a bluish black with a pale bloom, so only the blue ones are picked. A plant can live more than 170 years.

It may be the most widely spread woody plant in the world, growing across North America, Europe and northern Asia. In America it runs from Alaska to Newfoundland and south to the Carolinas and the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico, on dry, rocky, open ground. Herbalists in other regions use their own local junipers, and several junipers are commonly called cedar. This page is about Common Juniper.

A Little History

Juniper has been a kitchen and medicine-chest plant across the whole northern world. In the twelfth century Hildegard of Bingen recommended steam baths of juniper branches for the chest. It was first grown in gardens in 1560, and its berries were used to preserve meat and to flavor Geneva or Hollands Gin. In America, Constantine Rafinesque listed the berries in his Medical Flora of 1830 for dropsy, a weak stomach and bowels, and a palsied bladder. The juniper tree that Elijah sat down under in the wilderness (1 Kings 19:4) was a desert broom, rothem in Hebrew, and not this plant.