Usnea

Botanical Name: Usnea species, chiefly Usnea barbata (L.) F.H. Wigg.

Family: Parmeliaceae

Other Names: Old Man's Beard · Beard Lichen · Tree Lichen · Hairy Tree Moss

Parts Used: The whole lichen

Quick Look

Usnea is the gray-green, hair-like lichen that hangs from tree branches in clean, damp woods. It is one of the herbalist's strongest helps against infection. Reach for it for a sore throat, a chest cold with thick yellow or green phlegm, a sinus infection, a bladder infection, and as a powder or salve on cuts, boils and fungal skin. Its medicine does not come out well in plain water, so it is mostly taken as a tincture and used on the skin as a powder or salve. It works best where it touches: the throat, the skin and other tissue it reaches directly. Use it for a short time, while it is needed.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Sore throat. One of its best uses. Herbalists count it among the most valuable herbs for strep throat, taken as a tincture and used as a gargle.

Chest & sinuses. For bronchitis, chest colds and sinus infections, especially with hot, thick, yellow or green mucus.

Colds & flu. Taken at the start of a cold or flu, often in a blend with other herbs for the immune system.

Bladder. For bladder infections, with its special liking for the urinary tract.

Women's health. Used as a wash for vaginal yeast and other infections.

Wounds & skin. The powder or fresh lichen was laid on open wounds to stop bleeding and keep out infection. It is also used for boils, impetigo, acne, minor burns and cuts.

Staph & MRSA. Herbalists use it on staph infections of the skin, and in laboratory tests it has worked even against staph that resists antibiotics (MRSA).

Fungal skin. For ringworm and athlete's foot, as a tincture, wash or salve.

Worms & parasites. Used, often with other herbs, against parasites.

In blends. It pairs well with Echinacea, Goldenseal or Oregon Grape in blends for infection.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Tincture · Tea · Powder · Salve · Gargle · Wash

• Tincture (hot start): Its medicine comes out best with hot water and strong alcohol together. Fill a jar loosely with chopped usnea. Pour boiling water over it, just enough to wet it well, cover, and let it cool. Then add twice as much 190-proof grain alcohol as the water you used, so the usnea is well covered, and cap it. Let it steep 4 to 6 weeks, shaking now and then, and strain. 100-proof vodka can be used instead, but it makes a weaker tincture. A good tincture is often orange, but it can be pale yellow-green, depending on the lichen. Take ¼ to ½ teaspoon in a little water, four times a day.
• Tea: For those who avoid alcohol. Pour a cup of boiling water over 2–3 teaspoons of chopped usnea, cover, and steep 10–15 minutes. Up to three cups a day.
• Powder: Grind the dried lichen and sprinkle it on a small cut or scrape. Wear a mask while grinding it.
• Salve: Warm powdered usnea gently in oil, strain, and thicken with beeswax. Use it on cuts, boils and fungal skin.
• Gargle or wash: Stir 1 tablespoon of tincture into 2 cups of warm water, or use a strong tea.
• Give it a rest. Take it inside only while needed, for no more than about three weeks.
• Gather it from branches that have blown down in a storm, not from living trees. It grows very slowly.

Cautions

• 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.
• Usnic acid, a strong substance in usnea, has caused serious liver injury when it was made into concentrated diet pills. Whole usnea in tea or tincture has not been linked to this, but herbalists keep its use inside short and avoid it with liver disease.
• On the skin it gives some people a rash. Stop using it if one appears.
• Large doses can upset the stomach.
• Be sure of what you gather. Pull a strand gently apart: usnea has a white, stretchy cord inside. Wolf lichen, which is bright yellow-green and has no inner cord, is poisonous.
• Do not gather it near roads, factories or cities. It soaks up pollution and heavy metals from the air.
• Strep throat, a high fever, trouble breathing, or a bladder infection with fever or back pain needs medical attention.

Know the Plant

Usnea is not a plant but a lichen: a fungus and an alga living together as one. It grows in pale gray-green, branching strands, from a few inches to more than a foot long, hanging from the branches of firs, pines, oaks and fruit trees. Pull a strand gently and the green outer skin cracks to show a white, elastic cord inside, the surest sign of usnea.

It grows across much of the world wherever the air is clean and damp, and is common in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast and the mountains. Because it is so sensitive to pollution, it is sometimes called the lungs of the forest. Look-alikes include Spanish moss of the South, which is a flowering plant, and the flat, strap-like oakmoss and Ramalina lichens.

A Little History

Usnea has been used for infections and wounds in many lands for a very long time. The Greek physician Hippocrates gave it for complaints of the womb and the urinary tract. Native peoples of North America laid the fresh lichen on open wounds as a dressing. In England, John Hill's Family Herbal (1812) described it hanging in long gray strings from old oaks, and had it dried, powdered and sifted as an astringent for heavy menstrual bleeding, bloody flux and spitting of blood, a remedy he thought far too neglected. In the last century its usnic acid was studied as an antibiotic, and today herbalists value it as one of their chief helps against infection.

Uva Ursi

Botanical Name: Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng.

Family: Ericaceae (Heath family)

Other Names: Bearberry · Kinnikinnick · Bear's Grape · Mountain Cranberry

Parts Used: The leaves

Quick Look

Uva Ursi is a low, trailing evergreen with small, shiny, leathery leaves and red berries the bears love. It is the old standby for bladder infections. Reach for it, for a few days only, when there is burning and frequent urging, and for a weak, relaxed bladder that dribbles or leaks. It is strongly astringent, so it also helps diarrhea and heavy discharges. It is a short-term herb, never one to take for weeks, and it is not for pregnancy, nursing or kidney disease.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Bladder infections. Its great use. For a simple bladder infection with burning and frequent urging, taken for a few days, often with soothing herbs such as Marshmallow.

A weak bladder. For a relaxed bladder that dribbles, leaks or wets the bed, with a heavy, dragging feeling low in the back and between the legs. It was given to tone the bladder wall and help it empty well.

Stones & gravel. It was given to soothe the urinary tract when stones or gravel were present.

Kidneys. The old physicians used it for long-standing inflammation of the kidneys and bladder.

Discharges & bleeding. Its astringency made it a remedy for heavy menstrual bleeding and for vaginal discharge, taken inside and used as a wash.

Diarrhea. For long-lasting diarrhea and dysentery.

Wounds. Native peoples laid the leaves on wounds as a poultice.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Tea · Decoction · Tincture · Wash

• Tea: Pour a cup of boiling water over 1 tablespoon of the dried, crushed leaves. Cover and steep 15 minutes. Three cups a day.
• Decoction: The leaves are tough. Simmer 1 teaspoon of crushed leaves in a cup of water, covered, for 15–30 minutes. Three cups a day.
• Cold tea: Soak 1 tablespoon of crushed leaves in a cup of cold water overnight, then strain. It is gentler on the stomach.
• Soothing blend: Mix equal parts Uva Ursi leaf and Marshmallow root. Steep 1–2 tablespoons in a cup of boiling water, covered, for 20 minutes.
• Tincture: ½ to 1 teaspoon in a little water, three times a day.
• Wash: Use the cooled tea or decoction for vaginal discharge.
• Keep it short. Use it for up to a week, never more than two.
• Drink plenty of water while taking it.
• Herbalists say it works best when the urine is not acidic, so leave off cranberry juice and large doses of vitamin C while you take it.
• Gather the leaves in the fall. Take no more than a quarter of the leaves from any one plant.

Cautions

• Short-term use only. In the body its arbutin turns to hydroquinone, which is harmful with long use. One woman who drank the tea several times a day for three years suffered damage to her eyes.
• Avoid it in pregnancy and while nursing, because of the hydroquinone it releases in the body.
• Avoid it with kidney disease.
• Its many tannins can bring on nausea and an upset stomach. Large doses can cause vomiting and ringing in the ears, and very rarely convulsions.
• Its tannins can keep iron from being taken up. Use care with low iron.
• It may turn the urine dark, or greenish, while you take it. This is harmless.
• A bladder infection with fever, chills, pain in the back or side, or blood in the urine, or one that is not better in two or three days, needs medical attention.

Know the Plant

Uva Ursi is a low, creeping evergreen shrub, seldom more than six inches tall, that spreads in thick mats along the ground. Its leaves are about an inch long, paddle-shaped, thick and leathery, dark shiny green on top and paler and net-veined beneath. In spring and early summer it bears small, nodding, bell-shaped flowers, white tinged with pink, followed by bright red, dry, mealy berries in the fall.

It grows across the cold northern parts of North America, Europe and Asia, on sandy, rocky and poor soils, in open pine woods, on heaths and high in the mountains. It is often planted as a ground cover. Cowberry and whortleberry leaves look much like it but are dotted, not net-veined, underneath.

A Little History

The Welsh Physicians of Myddfai used Bearberry in the thirteenth century. It was described by the botanist Clusius in 1601, recommended to doctors in 1763, and entered the London Pharmacopoeia in 1788. Its leaves are so rich in tannin that they were used for tanning leather in Sweden and Russia. In America, its use began in the home before doctors took it up for bladder trouble, and it was listed in the United States Pharmacopoeia. Native peoples mixed the dried leaves into smoking blends, and the name Kinnikinnick comes from them. The name Uva Ursi means "bear's grape," for the bears that feed on its berries.