Skullcap

Botanical Name: Scutellaria lateriflora L.

Family: Lamiaceae (Mint family)

Other Names: Blue Skullcap · Mad-dog Skullcap · Madweed · Helmet Flower · Hoodwort

Parts Used: The flowering tops and leaves

Quick Look

Skullcap is a small, blue-flowered mint of damp American woods, and one of the finest herbs for the nerves. Its pattern is sensory overwhelm: when everything feels like too much. Reach for it when noise is too loud, light too bright and touch irritating, when a person startles, cries or snaps easily, and when that raw, exposed feeling shows up in the body as tight muscles and tension headaches. It both calms the nerves now and rebuilds them over time.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Sensory overwhelm. This is the pattern to remember: when everything feels like too much. The nervous system seems to have lost its buffer between the person and the world. Noise feels too loud, lights too bright, and touch irritating. The person may startle easily, cry easily, snap easily, or become irritable and reactive. Think of a nervous system that feels raw and exposed.

How someone gets here. It can follow long stress, when the nerves have been asked to handle too much for too long. It can follow trauma, or too much coffee and other stimulants. For some people this sensitivity is simply part of how they are made. However they got there, they have little buffer left.

Calming now, rebuilding over time. Skullcap is not only a relaxant but a nervine tonic. It settles an overstimulated nervous system in the moment and, taken over weeks, builds its capacity to handle what comes at it. It has long been given for nervous exhaustion that lies under nervous tension.

Tension in the body. The overwhelm does not stay in the mind. Skullcap is used for tight muscles, twitching, tremors, a clenched jaw and tension headaches, and the old physicians relied on it for tremors and twitching of every kind.

Sleep. For the person too tense to settle into sleep. A strong tea of recently dried herb before bed is more sedating than the tincture, and it blends well with Passionflower, Hops or California Poppy.

Women's cycles. Used for the tension and irritability before a period, for the mood swings of the change of life, and with other herbs for menstrual cramps.

Breaking a habit. Herbalists use it to steady the nerves during withdrawal from alcohol or sedatives.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Tincture · Tea

• Fresh tincture: For the tonic, rebuilding side of Skullcap, this is the preparation to remember. Made from the fresh flowering herb, 1:2 in strong alcohol. It gives both the rebuilding tonic quality and the relaxing action.
• The dose decides the action. At lower doses, about ¼ to ½ teaspoon, three times a day, Skullcap leans toward building the nerves' capacity. At higher doses, about ½ to 1 teaspoon, it becomes more relaxing and sedating.
• Tea: 1 tablespoon of dried herb to a cup of boiling water. Cover and steep 15 minutes. Drink up to three cups a day, or a strong cup an hour before bed. Use herb dried within the last six months.
• A nerve tea blend: Mix 1 part Oatstraw, ½ part each Holy Basil, violet leaf and Marshmallow root, and about ⅓ part Skullcap. Steep 1 heaping tablespoon of the blend in a cup of boiling water for 15 minutes, and sweeten with honey if you like.
• Fresh or dried matters. Dried Skullcap can still calm and sedate, but it loses the rebuilding tonic quality, and it weakens with age.
• Give it time. For the tonic effect, take it steadily for several weeks.

Cautions

• Skullcap is a gentle herb and safe for most people.
• Buy it from a trusted source. It has long been one of the most often substituted herbs, and the liver injuries once blamed on it were traced to products mixed with Germander, a plant that harms the liver.
• Herbalists differ on its use in pregnancy and nursing, and its safety then has not been established. Talk with a knowledgeable herbalist or care provider first.
• It may add to the effect of sleeping pills, sedatives and anxiety medicines, and to medicines for blood pressure.
• Very large doses can cause dizziness, confusion or twitching. Too much tea may bring on nausea.
• Do not confuse it with Chinese Skullcap (Scutellaria baicalensis), a root used for quite different purposes.
• Anxiety, panic or overwhelm that goes on for weeks needs the help of a doctor or counselor.

Know the Plant

Skullcap is a slender perennial of the mint family, one to two feet tall, with square, branching stems and pairs of small, toothed leaves. In mid to late summer it bears small blue flowers, sometimes pink or white, set in rows along one side of the stem. Each flower sits in a little cup shaped like a helmet or a tiny dish, which gives the plant its names.

It is native to North America and grows in damp places: stream banks, wet meadows, thickets and the edges of woods. It is easy to grow in a moist, partly shaded garden. When gathering wild Skullcap, take only the top two-thirds of a few plants from a large stand, and leave the roots.

A Little History

Native peoples, especially the Cherokee, used Skullcap long before the settlers came, and some tribes used it for women's needs. In the 1770s Dr. Lawrence Van Derveer and others claimed it cured rabies, which earned it the name Mad-dog Skullcap, though the claim did not hold. It reached the medical books of Europe in 1787. In the 1800s the American Physiomedical and Eclectic physicians made it one of their chief remedies for nervous excitability, restlessness, sleeplessness, tremors and twitching. They learned that the fresh, green herb worked best and that the dried herb lost its strength with age. Maud Grieve called it one of the finest nervines ever discovered.

Slippery Elm

Botanical Name: Ulmus rubra Muhl. (older name Ulmus fulva)

Family: Ulmaceae (Elm family)

Other Names: Red Elm · Moose Elm · Indian Elm · Gray Elm · Chew-bark

Parts Used: The inner bark, dried and powdered

Quick Look

Slippery Elm is the inner bark of an American elm tree, and it turns thick and slippery in water. That slippery coating is the medicine. Reach for it when the throat is raw, when the stomach or bowels are sore and inflamed, for a dry, tickling cough, and as a soothing poultice for boils, burns and splinters. It is also a gentle food for someone too sick to eat much. The tree is at risk, so use it wisely, and use Marshmallow root in its place when you can.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Sore throat & mouth. Its slippery coating clings to a raw, sore throat and eases the pain of swallowing and talking. It is a favorite in throat teas and lozenges.

Stomach & bowels. It coats and calms an inflamed stomach and bowels, and is used for heartburn, gastritis, ulcers, colitis and irritable bowels. It helps both diarrhea and constipation, and was given in dysentery.

Coughs. For a dry, tickling, unproductive cough, bronchitis and an irritated chest.

Food for the sick. The powder, cooked into a thin gruel, was long given to people too ill to keep down ordinary food, as nourishing in its way as oatmeal.

Bladder. Soothing to an irritated bladder and the burning of a bladder infection.

Skin. As a poultice it was counted one of the best there is for pain and inflammation. It is laid on boils, abscesses, burns, scalds, bruises and wounds, and used to draw out splinters. The dry powder was dusted on chafed skin.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Powder · Tea · Poultice

• Slippery Elm drink: Stir 1 tablespoon of powder into a little cold water to make a smooth paste, then add a pint of water. Bring it to a boil and simmer 10–15 minutes, stirring. Drink ½ cup, three times a day.
• Elm gruel: Make 1 teaspoon of powder into a smooth paste with cold water, then stir it into a pint of boiling water or warm milk. Sweeten with honey and a little cinnamon if you like. It can also be stirred into oatmeal or applesauce.
• Sore throat tea: Mix equal parts Slippery Elm bark, Marshmallow leaf, Ginger root and cinnamon chips. Fill a quart jar an inch or two deep with the mix, pour in just-boiled water, and let it steep at least 30 minutes, longer for a stronger tea. Keep it in the refrigerator up to two days.
• Poultice: Mix the powder with hot water to a thick paste, spread it on a soft cotton cloth, and lay it on the sore place. Rub a little olive oil on hairy skin first so it comes off easily.
• Choosing the powder: Good powder is grayish or fawn-colored. Dark or reddish powder is poor.
• Buy wisely: Choose bark from cultivated trees or from trees that were already down.

Cautions

• Slippery Elm is a food and one of the safest herbs. Herbalists count it safe by mouth in pregnancy and nursing.
• Its slippery coating can keep medicines from being taken up. Take it at least two hours apart from other medicines.
• Stripping the bark kills the tree, and Slippery Elm is on the United Plant Savers "at-risk" list. Do not strip wild trees, and use Marshmallow root, which works much the same way, whenever you can.
• Heartburn, stomach or bowel pain that keeps coming back, or a sore throat with a high fever, needs medical attention.

Know the Plant

Slippery Elm is a medium-sized tree, usually forty to sixty feet tall, with rough, grooved gray-brown bark. Its leaves are long, toothed and lopsided at the base, rough as sandpaper on top and hairy beneath, and its winter buds are covered with rusty, woolly hairs. Chew a twig or a strip of the reddish inner bark and it turns slippery in the mouth, which is how the tree got its name.

It is native to eastern and central North America, from the Atlantic west to the Dakotas and Texas and north into Ontario and Quebec, and grows in moist woods, along streams and on limestone soils. Dutch elm disease and elm yellows have killed many trees, so few now reach full size in the wild.

A Little History

Native peoples used the inner bark long before the settlers came, chewing it, making it into a healing salve, and laying it on wounds, and it was one of the few barks the settlers took up. People and animals alike chewed it for an upset stomach, which earned it the name Chew-bark. The inner bark was official in the United States Pharmacopoeia, and it became a household food for the sick and the weak. By the early 1900s, bark hunters had stripped so many trees near towns that the supply was falling fast. Today herbalists ask that it be used sparingly and from cultivated sources.

St. John's Wort

Botanical Name: Hypericum perforatum L.

Family: Hypericaceae (St. John's Wort family)

Other Names: Common St. John's Wort · Klamath Weed · Goatweed · St. Joan's Wort

Parts Used: The flowering tops, especially the buds and flowers

Quick Look

St. John's Wort is the bright yellow summer flower whose crushed buds stain the fingers red. It is a medicine for the nerves inside and out. Reach for its red oil for burns, cuts, bruises and sharp, burning nerve pain, and for cold sores and shingles. Taken inside, it lifts long-standing low spirits and steadies frayed nerves. It changes how the body handles many medicines, so anyone on prescription medicine must check first.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Low spirits. Taken daily for several weeks, it is used for low spirits that have settled in and will not lift, for the gloom of the dark winter months, for older folks who have lost interest in life, and for nervous exhaustion and grief. It does not help every kind of low mood.

Nerve pain & injuries. Its special field. It is used inside and on the skin for sharp, burning, shooting nerve pain: sciatica, the pain of shingles, crushed fingers and other injuries to the nerves. The old physicians gave it for injuries to the spine and for deep soreness after a blow.

Burns, cuts & bruises. The red oil is laid on scrapes, cuts, minor burns, sunburn, bruises, sprains, bug bites, diaper rash and irritated skin. It was long counted a wound herb much like Arnica.

Cold sores & shingles. The oil is put on at the first tingle of a cold sore, and the oil and tincture are used together for shingles.

Nerves & sleep. For nervous tension, anxiety and restlessness, and as a mild help to sleep.

Stomach & liver. For an upset stomach brought on by stress, and as a support to the liver.

Bladder. An old bedtime tea for bed-wetting, and a remedy for an irritable bladder.

Women's health. Used for the tension before a period and for the hot flashes, night sweats and low mood of the change of life.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Oil Infusion · Tincture · Tea · Salve

• Red oil: Fill a jar three-quarters full of fresh flowering tops, buds and all, and cover them with olive or sunflower oil by an inch. Cap it and set it in a sunny window for three to six weeks, shaking it often and keeping the plant under the oil. When the oil has turned deep red, strain it and store it in a dark bottle in a cool place, for up to a year. Use only the fresh plant for oil.
• Tincture: Fill a jar three-quarters full of the fresh flowering tops, cover them with strong alcohol by an inch, and shake it now and then for four weeks before straining. A deep red tincture is a good one. Take ¼ to ½ teaspoon, one to three times a day.
• Tea: 1–2 teaspoons of recently dried herb to a cup of boiling water. Cover and steep 10–15 minutes. Up to three cups a day.
• Liniment: Mix the tincture and the red oil to rub on sore, aching places and along a painful nerve.
• Salve: Thicken the red oil with beeswax.
• Give it time. For low spirits it takes several weeks of daily use.
• Gather it around midsummer, on a dry, sunny day. Squeeze a bud: if it leaves a red-purple stain, it is ready.

Cautions

• Medicines: this is the most important caution. Taken by mouth, St. John's Wort speeds the way the liver clears many medicines and can weaken them, sometimes dangerously. These include birth control pills, blood thinners, heart and seizure medicines, medicines that prevent transplant rejection, HIV and cancer medicines, and some cholesterol medicines. Taken with antidepressants, it can cause serious side effects. If you take any prescription medicine, ask your doctor or pharmacist before taking it by mouth.
• Avoid taking it by mouth in pregnancy and while nursing. It may affect the baby, and nursing babies of mothers who took it have had colic and drowsiness. Talk with a knowledgeable herbalist or care provider first.
• It can make some people, especially the fair-skinned, more sensitive to the sun, chiefly in large doses or strong extracts. Take care in strong sun and avoid tanning beds.
• Now and then it causes an upset stomach, headache or restlessness.
• Low spirits that are deep or lasting, or any thought of self-harm, need the help of a doctor or counselor right away.

Know the Plant

St. John's Wort is a perennial, one to three feet tall, with a reddish, woody base and smooth stems. The leaves are small, oblong, stalkless and set in pairs. Hold one up to the light and it is full of tiny see-through dots, which gave the plant its name perforatum, pierced. From June to August it bears bright yellow, five-petaled flowers about an inch across, edged with black dots, with a fluffy center of many long stamens in three bundles. Crush a bud and it stains the fingers red-purple.

It is native to Europe and Asia and now grows across North America along roadsides, in dry fields and on banks. In the West it is counted a noxious weed, because it can harm grazing animals. Several other St. John's Worts grow wild in America; use the one that stains the fingers red.

A Little History

St. John's Wort has been laid on wounds, burns and ulcers since ancient times. It blooms around June 24, the feast of St. John the Baptist, and the red that comes from its crushed flowers was called the blood of St. John, after the Baptist who was beheaded for his faithfulness (Mark 6:27–28). Country people steeped the flowers in oil in the summer sun to make a red balm for wounds. In America, King's American Dispensatory (1898) credited it with "undoubted power over the nervous system," and the Eclectic physicians gave it for injuries to the spine and nerves. Maud Grieve recorded a bedtime tea of it for bed-wetting. In recent years it has become best known as a remedy for low spirits.