Wild Cherry

Botanical Name: Prunus serotina Ehrh.

Family: Rosaceae (Rose family)

Other Names: Black Cherry · Wild Black Cherry · Rum Cherry · American Cherry

Parts Used: The inner bark of the branches, and the root bark

Quick Look

Wild Cherry is a tall native tree whose bark smells of bitter almonds when scratched. Its bark has been the great American cough remedy for two hundred years, and is the reason cough syrups taste of cherry. Reach for it for a dry, tickling, irritating cough that keeps you up at night or lingers after a cold, for a nervous cough, for a racing or fluttering heart that comes from weakness or nerves, and for a weak, nervous stomach while getting well. It is used only while needed.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Coughs. Its great use. For a dry, irritating, spasmodic cough, especially one that keeps a person awake or lingers after a cold, flu or bronchitis. The old physicians also gave it in the recovery stage of a long chest illness, when the cough went on with much phlegm, and for the nervous cough with no clear cause. It pairs well with soothing herbs such as Marshmallow, Licorice Root and Mullein, and with Thyme.

Asthma. As a supporting herb, especially when nerves bring on the attacks.

Heart. For a fluttering, pounding or racing heart that comes from weakness, nerves or an upset stomach, and for a fast, weak pulse.

Digestion & recovery. A bitter tonic for poor appetite and weak digestion while getting over an illness, and for a nervous, irritable stomach. Its astringency helps diarrhea.

Allergies. Used to calm an overactive response, such as seasonal allergies.

Wounds & sores. The cold tea was used as a wash or compress for sores, ulcers and wounds.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Tea · Decoction · Syrup · Tincture · Wash

• Hot or cold? Herbalists differ. The old physicians made it with cold water and never boiled it, because heat drives off part of the medicine that quiets a cough. Other herbalists today simmer it like other barks. Both ways are given here.
• Cold tea: Put 1–2 teaspoons of dried, chopped bark in a cup of cold water. Cover and let it stand several hours or overnight, then strain. Drink ¼ to ½ cup, three or four times a day.
• Simmered tea: Put ½ to 1 teaspoon of dried, chopped bark in a cup of water, bring it to a boil, and simmer gently, covered, 10–15 minutes. Strain and drink ½ to 1 cup, three times a day. Simmered tea is more astringent and less aromatic, and is good for a wash.
• Wild Cherry syrup: Make a strong cold or simmered tea, strain it, and stir in an equal amount of honey. Keep it in the refrigerator. Take 1–2 teaspoons up to four times a day.
• Tincture: ¼ to ½ teaspoon in a little water, three times a day.
• Wash: Use the cold tea on sores and wounds.
• Gather the bark in late summer or fall, from branches and twigs, peeling the thin bark with a knife. Never strip the trunk. Dry it quickly and completely. Bark loses strength with age, so gather fresh each year.

Cautions

• Avoid it in pregnancy, because the prunasin that gives it its almond smell may harm the unborn baby. Safety while nursing has not been established. Talk with a knowledgeable herbalist or care provider first.
• Use it only while needed, not for a long time.
• The dried bark is safe in normal amounts. The leaves, seeds, pits and fresh twigs are poisonous when eaten. Children have died from chewing the twigs, eating the seeds, or drinking a tea of the leaves, so keep them out of children's reach. Wilted leaves are the most dangerous and have killed livestock. Never use fallen, wilted or half-dried bark or leaves.
• Do not use it to quiet a wet cough when the lungs need to clear, or early in a chest infection.
• Do not give honey to babies under one year old.
• A cough with high fever, trouble breathing, or blood, or one that lasts for weeks, needs medical attention. So does a racing heart with chest pain or fainting.

Know the Plant

Wild Cherry is a tall tree, fifty to eighty feet or more. The bark of young trees and branches is smooth, shiny and reddish-brown, marked with short horizontal lines. On old trunks it turns dark and rough, breaking into curled plates that look like burnt potato chips. Scratch a twig and it smells of bitter almonds. The leaves are narrow, pointed, finely toothed and glossy, about five inches long. In May it bears long, drooping clusters of small white flowers, later than other cherries, and in late summer small, dark purple-black cherries that are bitter-sweet and loved by birds.

It is native to eastern and central North America and grows in woods, fields, fencerows and along roadsides. The smaller Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) is a close relative used in some of the same ways.

A Little History

Wild Cherry was an important food and medicine for many Native peoples. The Delaware used it as a spring tonic and for diarrhea, the Mohegan gave the bark with Boneset for colds, and the Cherokee used it as a tonic and a calming remedy. The settlers learned it from them, and it was listed in the United States Pharmacopoeia. The Eclectic physicians gave it for coughs, palpitations and weak digestion. Wild cherry syrup became so common in cough medicine that cherry is still the flavor of cough syrup today. Its name Rum Cherry comes from flavoring rum and brandy with the fruit.

Wood Betony

Botanical Name: Stachys officinalis (L.) Trevis. (also called Betonica officinalis)

Family: Lamiaceae (Mint family)

Other Names: Betony · Bishop's Wort · Purple Betony

Parts Used: Leaves and flowering tops

Quick Look

Wood Betony is a modest mint-family meadow plant with spikes of purple-red flowers. Its name is said to mean "good for the head," and that is its special field. Reach for it for tension headaches, for frazzled, overstrung nerves, for the person who feels scattered or cut off from their body after stress or shock, for a stomach that knots up with worry, and for muscle tension and nerve pain. It is gentle and pleasant as a daily tea.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Headaches. Its great use. For tension headaches, nervous headaches, headaches from a stuffy head or sinuses, and migraines, often with Feverfew, Rosemary and Skullcap.

Nerves. For nervous exhaustion, anxiety, agitation and the "highly strung." For a racing mind at night and bad dreams. Herbalists value it especially for the person who feels scattered, spacey or disconnected from their body after stress, shock or trauma.

Digestion. For a stomach upset by stress, with indigestion, gas, bloating, nausea, colic and cramping. As a mild bitter it helps a poor appetite, and its astringency helps diarrhea.

Pain & tension. For tight muscles, spasms, nerve pain such as sciatica, rheumatic aches and menstrual cramps.

Heart. For palpitations, and as a supporting herb for blood pressure raised by stress.

Wounds. The fresh leaves, crushed or chewed, were laid on cuts, bruises and sprains, and it is made into an oil or salve for the skin.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Tea · Tincture · Poultice · Oil Infusion · Salve

• Tea: 1–2 teaspoons dried herb to a cup of boiling water. Cover and steep 10–20 minutes. Up to three cups a day.
• Clear head tea: Mix equal parts Wood Betony, Skullcap, Linden, Oats (oatstraw) and Lemon Balm. Steep 1–2 teaspoons of the mix in a cup of hot water, covered, up to 15 minutes. Up to three cups a day.
• Tincture: ½ to 1 teaspoon in a little water, up to three times a day.
• Poultice: Crush fresh leaves and lay them on a cut, bruise or sprain.
• Oil or salve: Infuse the dried herb in oil, strain, and thicken with beeswax if you like, for bruises, strains and sore skin.
• Gather it in summer when it flowers, on a dry morning after the dew has gone. Dry it in the shade and store it loosely, not pressed down.

Cautions

• Avoid it in pregnancy, because it can stimulate the womb. Safety while nursing has not been established. Talk with a knowledgeable herbalist or care provider first.
• Large amounts can upset the stomach.
• Use the leaves and flowers, not the root, which causes vomiting.
• The fresh leaves were said to be intoxicating in large amounts. The dried herb is the one usually used inside.
• The powder makes people sneeze.
• Be sure of the plant. Several unrelated plants, such as the louseworts (Pedicularis), are also called betony.
• A sudden, severe headache, the worst of your life, a headache with a stiff neck or fever, or one after a blow to the head needs medical attention right away.

Know the Plant

Wood Betony is a perennial of the mint family, one to two feet tall, with square stems. Its leaves are oblong, rough, hairy and scalloped, most of them in a clump at the base on long stalks, with a few smaller pairs up the stem. In summer it bears dense spikes of small, two-lipped, purplish-red flowers, now and then pink or white, in rings around the stem, with a gap low in the spike. Bees love it.

It is native to Europe and western Asia and grows in meadows, open woods, hedgerows and heaths. It grows well in gardens in sun or part shade, in moist but well-drained soil, and flowers in its second year. It has become rare in parts of Britain and Ireland, so buy it from cultivated sources.

A Little History

Betony was praised by the Greeks, and Antonius Musa, physician to the Roman emperor Augustus, wrote a whole book on it, claiming it cured forty-seven diseases. Through the Middle Ages it grew in every monastery and apothecary garden and was counted the chief remedy for all complaints of the head. Its fame gave rise to the Italian proverb "Sell your coat and buy Betony," and the Spanish saying that a good man "has as many virtues as Betony." A weak tea of it was once drunk in place of tea. It fell out of use for many years, and herbalists today have brought it back as a gentle, grounding nerve herb.

Wormwood

Botanical Name: Artemisia absinthium L.

Family: Asteraceae (Daisy family)

Other Names: Absinthium · Common Wormwood · Absinthe Wormwood · Green Ginger

Parts Used: Leaves and flowering tops

Quick Look

Wormwood is a silvery, feathery garden herb and one of the most bitter plants there is. Its name tells its oldest use: driving out worms. Reach for it, in small amounts, to wake up a weak, sluggish digestion and poor appetite, for gas and heaviness after meals, against intestinal worms, and as a hot compress for sprains and bruises. It is a strong herb: take a little, for a short time, and never in pregnancy or with seizures.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Weak digestion. Its chief use today. Taken in small amounts before meals for poor appetite, weak stomach acid and bile, gas, bloating and a heavy feeling after eating, and to help with sugar cravings. It was given to those recovering from illness, and the old physicians gave it for a stomach worn down by drink.

Worms. Its oldest use, against roundworm and pinworm. Today it is usually given in a blend with other herbs such as Black Walnut and Garlic.

Liver & gallbladder. It stirs the flow of bile and was once used for jaundice.

Sprains & bruises. The old physicians' favorite outward use: a hot compress of wormwood steeped in vinegar and water, laid on sprains, bruises and swollen, inflamed joints.

Skin. Used on the skin for fungal infections such as athlete's foot, for scabies and for slow-healing sores.

Women's cycles. For delayed or scanty menstruation and menstrual cramps.

Low spirits. Old writers counted it a nerve tonic for melancholy.

Moths & fleas. Dried sprigs were laid among woolens and furs and strewn in houses to keep away moths, fleas and other insects.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Tea · Tincture · Fomentation · Oil Infusion

• Tea: ½ to 1 teaspoon of dried herb to a cup of boiling water. Cover and steep 10 minutes. Sip ¼ to ½ cup about 30 minutes before meals to stir the appetite, up to three times a day. Do not make it stronger; too strong a tea upsets the stomach instead of helping it.
• Tincture: 5 to 20 drops in a little water before meals, once or twice a day.
• Tea is the gentler choice. Water draws out less of the thujone than alcohol does.
• Hot compress: Steep a handful of wormwood in equal parts hot vinegar and water. Soak a cloth in it and lay it, warm, on a sprain or bruise. Do not use it on broken skin.
• Oil: Infuse the dried herb in oil for fungal skin and sore joints.
• For worms: Use it in a blend, with the guidance of a knowledgeable herbalist.
• Keep it short. Use it for no more than three weeks, then take a break.
• Gather it when it flowers, in mid to late summer.

Cautions

• Never use it in pregnancy. It can bring on miscarriage. Avoid it while nursing as well.
• Its oil is rich in thujone, which harms the nerves. Large doses, or use for a long time, can cause headache, nausea, vomiting and convulsions. Never take the essential oil by mouth.
• Avoid it with epilepsy or any tendency to seizures.
• Do not combine it with other thujone herbs such as Sage, Thuja or Tansy.
• Avoid it with stomach or bowel ulcers or a sour, acid stomach.
• Those allergic to plants of the daisy family, such as ragweed, may react to it.
• Do not use it for many weeks at a time. Worms that keep coming back need a doctor's or herbalist's care.

Know the Plant

Wormwood is a bushy perennial with a woody base, two to four feet tall. Its leaves are deeply cut into narrow, feathery lobes, gray-green above and silvery beneath, and covered with fine silky hairs. Rub a leaf and it smells strong and bitter. From midsummer into fall it bears many tiny, nodding, round, pale yellow flower heads in branching clusters.

It is native to Europe, North Africa and western Asia and now grows wild in the northern United States and Canada on dry waste ground, roadsides and pastures. It is easy to grow in full sun and poor, well-drained soil. Its relatives include Mugwort and Southernwood. Sweet Annie (Sweet Wormwood) is a different plant with different uses.

A Little History

Wormwood has stood for bitterness since ancient times. In the Bible it is a picture of sorrow and of the bitter end of sin: "her end is bitter as wormwood" (Proverbs 5:4), and "remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall" (Lamentations 3:19). In Revelation, a star called Wormwood turns the waters bitter (Revelation 8:11). The wormwood of the Bible lands was likely a related desert kind. Dioscorides and Pliny gave it for the stomach and for worms, and the German name Wermut is tied to wurm, worm. In England it was strewn in houses against fleas and moths, and brewers once used it in place of hops. In the 1800s it gave its name to absinthe, a strong green liquor whose heavy use brought on convulsions and ruin, and the Eclectic physicians warned against overuse even as they gave small doses for weak digestion.