Hedgerow Medicine E-Book

Julie Bruton-Seal

• Herausgeber: Merlin Unwin Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 398

Beschreibung

Britain's hedgerows abound with forgotten remedies for countless health problems. Julie Bruton-Seal, practising medical herbalist, together with her co-author, the editor and writer Matthew Seal, have responded to the growing interest in natural medicine by aiming this book at the amateur who wants to improve his or her health in the same way that mankind has done for centuries around the world: by using local wild plants and herbs. There are clear instructions about which plants to harvest, when, and over 120 recipes showing how to make them into teas, vinegars, oils, creams, pillows, poultices or alcohol-based tinctures. Julie and Matthew explain which ailments can be treated, and what benefits can be expected. As well as being packed with practical information on using 50 native plants, Hedgerow Medicine also gives a fascinating insight into the literary, historic and worldwide application of these herbal remedies.

Leseprobe

Praise for Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal

Julie Bruton-Seal’s long experience as a practising herbalist combined with husband Matthew’s publishing know-how has produced a great new herbal for the 21st century. This is the book that I take most recipes from. While there have been many excellent herbals over the years and centuries, this is the most useful to me practically…. Hedgerow Medicine has become a popular book, which is unsurprising with its excellent photos and easy to use format.

Davina Wynne-Jones, Barnsley Gardens

Hedgerow Medicine is a wonderful book that all herbalists need. It embodies a heartfelt love of herbalism combined with clearly articulated scientific insights. I plan to get some schools here [California] using it and will promote it as much as possible.

David Hoffmann, author of Holistic Herbal

I have been browsing the delightful Hedgerow Medicine: how beautifully you’ve done it, how wonderfully accessible is the plant therapy you suggest in its pages. My warmest congratulations to both for a gorgeous and most useful book.

Barbara Griggs, author of Green Pharmacy

At last! A herbal with photographs. I have longed for a book like this for years…. It will rapidly become a classic.

Nature’s Path

HEDGEROW MEDICINE

Harvest and Make Your Own Herbal Remedies

JULIE BRUTON-SEAL MATTHEW SEAL

To our parents

Jen and Des Bartlett Midge and George Seal

Contents

Title PageDedicationPrefaceIntroductionHarvesting from the hedgerowUsing your hedgerow harvestAgrimonyBilberryBirchBlackberry, BrambleBurdockCherryChickweedCleaversColtsfootComfreyCouch grassCurled dockDandelionElderGuelder rose, CrampbarkHawthornHoneysuckle, WoodbineHopsHorse chestnutHorseradishHorsetailLime, LindenLyciumMallowMeadowsweetMintMugwortMulleinNettleOakPellitory of the wallPlantainRamsonsRaspberryRed cloverRed poppyRosebay willowherbSelf-healShepherd’s purseSt John’s wortSweet cicelyTeaselVervainWhite deadnettleWild lettuceWild roseWillowWillowherbWood betonyYarrowNotes to the textRecommended readingResourcesIndexThe AuthorsOther books by Julie and MatthewCopyright

Preface

This is a book about common British hedgerow plants and their medicinal uses. We began with a list of 100 species, which we thought was a severe selection already, but our publisher wisely persuaded us to concentrate on our top 50 choices in greater depth. These are all wild plants (many also occur as ‘weeds’) that are abundant, easy to identify, cost nothing to pick and in most cases will survive your harvesting. Each has well-known, sometimes forgotten or even novel medicinal values – what the old herbals called the ‘virtues’ of the plant.

Most of the species you find in our pages will be ones you’d expect, such as nettle, elder, hawthorn, dandelion, mugwort, mullein, bramble, rose and burdock; these grow almost everywhere but are actually powerful, proven and significant herbs to which we gladly dedicate most space. Commonness is not to be despised: it means a plant has the survival adaptations needed to accompany and even thrive alongside our changing civilisation. As you will never keep clover or couch grass out of your lawn or red poppy out of your fields forever, we say: take advantage of their medicinal and survival strengths, and use them for your own benefit.

Sometimes we include less likely plants, like the majestic teasel, which we make into a flower essence for joint pain, or lycium, source of the fashionable imported goji berries but actually a British hedgerow species for over 250 years. A few plants seemed to choose us, as when self-heal invaded our garden while we were planning the book, and we looked again at its uses; rosebay and sweet cicely also eased their way in. It was difficult to make a selection, which is bound to be subjective, but all the plants we have included are ones that Julie uses in her herbal practice and has found medicinally effective.

We list the plants alphabetically by familiar common name. Each plant is given only a short description, as it is generally unmistakable, or we describe similar family members that are used interchangeably. In some instances, such as comfrey, when it is important to make an exact and positive identification, we provide precise details. We go on to outline the habitat, distribution, related species and parts used of each plant.

The text blends the history, folklore, botany, economic and other uses of the plants together with their modern herbal applications. Each entry concludes with easy-to-follow recipes and bullet points of main medicinal benefits. We tie the ailments and benefits together by including both in a comprehensive index.

In case it is gripping you to know how we divided the work, Julie the herbalist usually initiated the writing and Matthew the editor completed it, but often we operated the reverse way. The words sometimes came first and sometimes the images.

Julie was our photographer, using a Nikon D80 digital camera. Every image is original and shot for this book; in just a few cases an illustration is reproduced by Julie from an old herbal. Matthew was chauffeur and plant spotter, and fulfilled a lifetime ambition by being key grip on our photo shoots.

We worked together on choice of pictures and design template, but the book’s appearance is essentially the result of another collaboration, that between Julie and InDesign software. Our goal was to make visually stimulating spreads, with a few ‘sumptuous’ full-page pictures, in our publisher’s phrase, and a friendly but informed text. Asked for at least ten larger images, we supplied well over twenty. We hope the armchair reader will be inspired into harvesting action.

We particularly thank practising fellow herbalists Christine Herbert and Paula Stone, who read most of the text and saved us from some embarrassing errors. Needless to say, the opinions expressed here are our own, and we take responsibility for them.

We have acknowledged sources in the notes to the text, and thank copyright holders for permission to include extracts from their work. If we have overlooked or been unable to locate copyright owners we will gladly add details in a later edition.

We are especially grateful to the book’s godparents, Merlin and Karen Unwin, for their forbearance and intrepidity: not many publishers would have entrusted unknown authors with the design, organisation, editing and copy-editing of their own book.

We are grateful to the John Innes Foundation Collection of Rare Botanical Books and Ken Dick, the former Librarian, for wonderful access to a splendid botanical library, with its added virtue of being situated so close to our home; we also thank the British Library and Norfolk Record Office for unfailing help.

We travelled widely over England and Wales in pursuit of our plants, and thank Karin and Peter Haile for herbal hospitality. There are too many delightful and helpful B&B owners to name individually, so we’ll simply recommend Alastair Sawday’s books and website as a guide to lovely places to stay.

The book was planned in early 2006, with photography in earnest from autumn 2006 into autumn 2007. This tight schedule meant we had a calendar year for everything. We had one shot, sometimes literally, at some plants, and fell foul of the weather in the wet spring and summer of 2007, notably for hawthorn flowers. We did get some shots, as the vignette shows, but never the stunning big landscape view we wanted. Many photos were taken from beneath the protection of an umbrella held by the intrepid, soaked key grip. We also had some close scrapes, such as finding bilberries in Surrey and wood betony in Lincolnshire when we’d almost given up on them.

We shouldn’t end without thanking the plants. Hedgerow medicine-harvesting, like foraging for wild food, is best done with respect for both habitat and individual plants. In the vervain entry we quote an old prayer of thanks used when picking it; we received gifts from all fifty of our plants. And we now begin to understand why Dutch herbalist Herman Boerhaave would lift his hat in respect whenever he walked by ‘mother elder’.

Julie Bruton-Seal & Matthew Seal Ashwellthorpe, Norfolk January 2008

Introduction

The title ‘hedgerow medicine’ is of our own devising, though some people we have talked to imagine it is much older.

We use ‘hedgerow’ loosely, to indicate wild plants of the countryside. In doing this we feel supported by the original Anglo-Saxon term haga or haeg for hedge, which conveyed the idea of any physical boundary, whether of vegetation, a fence, wall or earth bank, between two properties or fields.

The plants we have selected are found in various habitats, including but not limited to hedgerows. So do not be surprised to see pictures here of plants growing on cliff scree, an abbey wall or open moorland. Quite a few of our plants are happy in cities, inhabiting waste land and parks or cracks in paving.

If we give ourselves some latitude in the first part of our title, what of ‘medicine’? Here we narrow things down, starting from the position that herbal medicines are valid, and that readers will be willing to look at making herbal remedies rather than buying standardised extracts of herbs in health shops.

We do not intend to decry either pharmaceutical or manufactured herbal products, for clearly both have their place and many people want them. What we’d prefer to do is make a positive case for wild plants.

We begin with an quotation from a 2004 Kew survey of Britain’s Wild Harvest. In terms of sourcing herbal medicines, it pointed out that Britain is one of the world’s major importers of herbs, but ‘despite this interest our own wild species play a remarkably small role in this market. Almost all of the tinctures, creams or infusions we use derive from plants that we import or cultivate.’

Using British wild species for herbal remedies saves on imports and air miles; hedgerow medicines are not only cheap, they are free. There is also a sustainability issue: many popular imported herbal medicines have negative environmental effects in their place of origin. Our plants are common, local, often invasive plants that are written off as weeds.

An excellent reason to harvest and make your own local herbal medicines is the pleasure the whole process brings. You will also have the peace of mind of knowing exactly what is in your medicines. The again, the current regulatory environment is running against over-the-counter herbal preparations, and there is almost certain to be less choice and more control in future. All in all, the best option is to learn to make your own remedies.

Do please be aware that this book is intended to be a general guide to plant medicines and is not specific to personal circumstances or meant to replace a professional consultation. Do not self-diagnose or self-treat for serious or long-term conditions without consulting a qualified herbal or medical practitioner.

Having said that, we hope we can show you how easy it is to make your own remedies from wild plants you have gathered. You will soon build up a home medicine cabinet better than anything you could buy. We support you in taking responsibility for your own health, and wish you well in seeking the healing virtues offered by the plants all around us.

Harvesting from the hedgerow

Harvesting wild plants for food or medicine is a great pleasure, and healing in its own right. We all need the company of plants and wild places in our lives, whether this is in an old wood, a remote moor or seashore, just down the street or even in our own garden. Gathering herbs for free is the beginning of a valuable and therapeutic relationship with the wild. Here are a few basic guidelines to help you get started.

Why pay others to frolic in the luscious gardens of Earth, picking flowers and enjoying themselves making herbal products? You can do all that frolicking, immersing yourself in wondrous herbal beauty, and uplifting your mind and spirit. Making your own herbal medicine both enhances your happiness and boosts your immune system.

– Green (2000)

When collecting, try to choose a place where the plant you are harvesting is abundant and vibrant. Woods, fields and minor roads are best, though many of our fifty plants are also found in the city. Avoiding heavy traffic is safer for you and your lungs, and plants growing in quiet places are less polluted. Hedgerows next to fields may receive crop sprays.

We usually want to harvest herbs when they are at their lushest. It’s best to pick on a dry day, after the morning dew has burned off. For St John’s wort and aromatic plants the energy of the sun is really important, so wait for a hot day and pick while the sun is high in the sky, ideally just before noon.

Perhaps the most important thing is to ensure you have the right plant. A good field guide is essential – we like Wild Flowers of Britain & Ireland by Blamey, Fitter and Fitter. Many herbalists offer herb walks, so do contact practitioners in your area: check our Resources pages for professional organisations. For distribution maps and identifications, the Botanical Society of the British Isles has a good website: see www.bsbi.net.org.

Harvest only what you need and will use; leave some of the plant so it will grow back. When picking ‘above-ground parts’ of a plant, only take the top half to two-thirds. Never harvest a plant if it is the only one in a particular area.

We have included a few roots in our recipes. It is important not to over-harvest these, even though most of the plants we have selected are widespread and classed as weeds. The law states that you must seek the permission of the landowner before you dig up roots, if this is not on your own land (see p. 198 for more on law).

Collecting equipment is simple: think carrier bags or a basket, and perhaps gloves, scissors or secateurs. If you are harvesting roots take a shovel or digging fork.

A quiet Norfolk country road in May, with hawthorn flowering and a healthy undergrowth of nettles and cleavers: an invitation to the hedgerow harvest.

Using your hedgerow harvest

Herbs can be used in many different ways. Simplest of all is nibbling on the fresh plant, crushing the leaves to apply them as a poultice or perhaps boiling up some leaves as a tea. Many of the plants discussed in this book are foods as well as medicines, and incorporating them seasonally in your diet is a tasty and enjoyable way to improve your health.

But because fresh herbs aren’t available year round or may not grow right on your doorstep, you may want to preserve them for later use. Follow these guidelines.

Equipment needed You don’t need any special equipment for making your own hedgerow medicines. You probably already have most of what you need. Kitchen basics like a teapot, measuring jugs, saucepans and a blender are all useful, as are jam-making supplies such as a jelly bag and jam jars. A mortar and pestle are useful but not essential. You’ll also need jars and bottles, and labels for these.

There is a list of suppliers at the end of the book to help you source any supplies or ingredients you may need (see page 202).

It is a good idea to have a notebook to write down your experiences, so you’ll have a record for yourself and can repeat successes. Who knows, it could become a future family heirloom like the stillroom books of old!

Drying herbs The simplest way to preserve a plant is to dry it, and then use the dried part as a tea (infusion or decoction: see opposite). Dried plant material can also go into tinctures, infused oils and other preparations, though these are often made directly from fresh plants.

To dry herbs, tie them in small bundles and hang these from the rafters or a laundry airer, or spread the herbs on a sheet of brown paper or a screen. (Avoid using newspaper as the inks contain toxic chemicals.) You can easily make your own drying screen by stapling some mosquito netting or other open-weave fabric to a wooden frame. This is ideal, as the air can circulate around the plant, and yet you won’t lose any small flowers or leaves that are loose.

Generally, plants are best dried out of the sun. An airing cupboard works well, particularly in damp weather.

Storing dried herbs Once the plant is crisply dry, you can discard any larger stalks. Whole leaves and flowers will keep best, but if they are large you may want to crumble them so they take up less space. They will be easier to measure for teas etc. if they are crumbled before use.

Dried herbs can be stored in brown paper bags or in airtight containers such as sweet jars or plastic tubs, in a cool place. If your container is made of clear glass or other transparent material, keep it in the dark as light will fade leaves and flowers quite quickly. Brown glass jars are excellent – we have happily worked our way through quantities of hot chocolate in order to build up a collection of these!

Dried herbs will usually keep for a year, until you can replace them with a fresh harvest. Roots and bark keep longer than leaves and flowers.

Teas: infusions and decoctions The simplest way to make a plant extract is with hot water. Use fresh or dried herbs. An infusion, where hot water is poured over the herb and left to steep for several minutes, is the usual method for a tea of leaves and flowers.

Part of a summer’s hedgerow harvest: (from left) St John’s wort in olive oil; dried mugwort; dandelion flower oil; raspberry vinegar; meadowsweet ghee; meadowsweet, mugwort and mint in white wine; rosehip oxymel

A decoction, where the herb is simmered or boiled in water for some time, is needed for roots and bark. Infusions and decoctions can also be used as mouthwashes, gargles, eyebaths, fomentations and douches.

Tinctures While the term tincture can refer to any liquid extract of a plant, what is usually meant is an alcohol and water extract. Many plant constituents dissolve more easily in a mixture of alcohol and water than in pure water. There is the added advantage of the alcohol being a preservative, allowing the extract to be stored for several years. The alcohol content of the finished extract needs to be at least 20% to adequately preserve it. Most commercially produced tinctures have a minimum alcohol content of 25%. A higher concentration is needed to extract more resinous substances, such as myrrh resin.

For making your own tinctures, vodka is preferred as it has no flavour of its own, and allows the taste of the herbs to come through. Whisky, brandy or rum work quite well too. Wine is good, especially for dried herbs, but will not have as long a shelf life.

To make a tincture, you simply fill a jar with the herb and top up with alcohol, or you can put the whole lot in the blender first. The mixture is then kept out of the light for anything from a day to a month to infuse before being strained and bottled. Tinctures are convenient to store and to take. We find amber or blue glass jars best for keeping, although clear bottles will let you enjoy the colours of your tinctures. Store them in a cool place. Kept properly, most tinctures have a shelf life of around five years. They are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream, and alcohol makes the herbal preparation more heating and dispersing in its effect.

Wines and beers Many herbs can be brewed into wines and beers, which will retain the medicinal virtues of the plants. Elderberry wine and nettle beer are traditional, but don’t forget that ordinary beer is brewed with hops, a medicinal plant.

Glycerites Vegetable glycerine is extracted from palm or other oil, and is a sweet, syrupy substance. It is particularly good in making medicines for children, and for soothing preparations intended for the throat and digestive tract, or coughs. A glycerite will keep well as long as the concentration of glycerine is at least 50% to 60% in the finished product.

Glycerine does not extract most plant constituents as well as alcohol does, but is effective for flowers such as red poppies, roses and St John’s wort. Glycerites are made the same way as tinctures, except the jar is kept in the sun or in a warm place to infuse.

Glycerine is a good preservative for fresh plant juices, in which half fresh plant juice and half glycerine are mixed, as it keeps the juice green and in suspension better than alcohol. This preparation is called a succus.

Vinegars Another way to extract and preserve plant material is to use vinegar. Some plant constituents extract better in an acidic medium, making vinegar the perfect choice. Herbal vinegars are often made from pleasant-tasting herbs, and used in salad dressings and for cooking. They are also a good addition to the bath or for rinsing hair, as the acetic acid of the vinegar helps restore the natural protective acid pH of the body’s exterior. Cider vinegar is a remedy for colds and other viruses, so it is a good solvent for herbs for these conditions.

Herbal honeys Honey has natural antibiotic and antiseptic properties, so is an excellent vehicle for medicines to fight infection. It can be applied topically to wounds and burns. Local honey can help prevent hayfever attacks.

Honey is naturally sweet, making it palatable for medicines for children. It is also particularly suited to medicines for the throat and respiratory system as it is soothing and also clears congestion. Herb-infused honeys are made the same way as glycerites, or can be gently heated in a bain-marie.

Oxymels An oxymel is a preparation of honey and vinegar. Oxymels were once popular as cordials, both in Middle Eastern and European traditions. They are particularly good for cold and ’flu remedies. Honey can be added to a herb-infused vinegar, or an infused honey can be used as well.

Electuaries Make these by stirring powdered dried herbs into honey or glycerine to make a paste. Electuaries are good as children’s remedies, and are often used to soothe the digestive tract. This is also a good way to prepare tonic herbs.

Syrups Syrups are made by boiling the herb with sugar and water. The sugar acts as a preservative, and can help extract the plant material. Syrups generally keep well, especially the thicker ones containing more sugar, as long as they are stored in sterilised bottles.

They are particularly suitable for children because of their sweet taste, and are generally soothing.

Herbal sweets While we are not recommending large amounts of sugar as being healthy, herbal sweets such as coltsfoot rock and peppermints are a traditional way of taking herbs in a pleasurable way.

Plant essences Plant essences, usually flower essences, differ from other herbal preparations in that they only contain the vibrational energy of the plant, and none of the plant chemistry. To make an essence, the flowers or other plant parts are usually put in water in a glass bowl and left to infuse in the sun for a couple of hours, as in the instructions for our self-heal essence. This essence is then preserved with brandy, and diluted for use.

Infused oils Oil is mostly used to extract plants for external use on the skin, but infused oils can equally well be taken internally. Like vinegars, they are good in salad dressings and in cooking.

We prefer extra virgin olive oil as a base, as it does not go rancid like many polyunsaturated oils do. Other oils, such as coconut and sesame, may be chosen because of their individual characteristics.

Infused oils are also known as macerated oils, and should not be confused with essential oils, which are aromatic oils isolated by distilling the plant material.

Ointments or salves Ointments or salves are rubbed onto the skin. The simplest ointments are made by adding beeswax to an infused oil and heating until the beeswax has melted. The amount of wax needed will vary, depending on the climate or temperature in which it will be used, with more wax needed in hotter climates or weather.

Ointments made this way have a very good shelf life. They absorb well, while providing a protective layer on top of the skin.

Ointments can also be made with animal fats or hard plant fats such as cocoa butter.

Nettle, from Woodville’s Medical Botany (1790–3)

Butters and ghees Butter can be used instead of oil to extract herbs, and, once clarified by simmering, it keeps well without refrigeration, making a simple ointment. Clarified butter is a staple in Indian cooking and medicine, where it is called ghee. It is soothing on the skin and absorbs well. Herbal butters and ghees can also be used as food.

Skin creams Creams are a mixture of a water-based preparation with an oil-based one, to make an emulsion. Creams are absorbed into the skin more rapidly than ointments, but have the disadvantages of being more difficult to make and not keeping as well. Essential oils can be added to help preserve creams, and they keep best if refrigerated.

Poultices The simplest poultice is mashed fresh herb put on to the skin, as when you crush a ribwort leaf and apply it to a wasp sting. Poultices can be made from fresh herb juice mixed with slippery elm powder or simply flour, or from dried herb moistened with hot water or vinegar.

Change the poultice every few hours and keep it in place with a bandage or sticking plaster.

Fomentations or compresses A fomentation or compress is an infusion or a decoction applied externally. Simply soak a flannel or bandage in the warm or cold liquid, and apply. Hot fomentations are used to disperse and clear, and are good for conditions as varied as backache, joint pain, boils and acne. Hot fomentations need to be refreshed frequently once they cool down.

Cold fomentations can be used for cases of inflammation or for headaches. Alternating hot and cold fomentations works well for sprains and other injuries.

Elderflower, from Woodville’s Medical Botany (1790–3);

Embrocations or liniments Embrocations or liniments are used in massage, with the herbs in an oil or alcohol base or a mixture of the two. Absorbed quickly through the skin, they can readily relieve muscle tension, pain and inflammation, and speed the healing of injuries.

Baths Herbs can be added conveniently to bathwater by tying a sock or cloth full of dried or fresh herb to the hot tap as you run the bath, or by adding a few cups of an infusion or decoction. Herbal vinegars and oils can also be added to bath water, as can essential oils.

Besides full baths, hand and foot baths can be very effective, as can sitz or hip baths where only your bottom is in the water.

Douches Herbal infusions or decoctions can be used once they have cooled as douches for vaginal infections or inflammation.

HEDGEROW MEDICINE

Elder in the Lincolnshire Wolds, June

Agrimony

Agrimony

Agrimonia eupatoria, A. procera

Agrimony stops bleeding of all sorts, and is used in trauma treatment and surgery in Chinese hospitals. It helps relieve pain too, and has a long tradition as a wound herb as well as for treating liver, digestive and urinary tract problems.

Agrimony tightens and tones the tissues, and, in a seeming contradiction, also relaxes tension, both physical and mental. This is the herb for when you’re feeling frazzled, when stress and tension or pain are causing torment.

Rosaceae Rose family

Description: Upright perennials with spikes of yellow flowers up to 60cm.

Habitat: Meadows and roadsides/grassy places.

Distribution: Throughout the British Isles except for the north of Scotland and the Welsh mountains, but more common in the south. Native to Europe, introduced to North America.

Related species: There are around 15 species of agrimony found in northern temperate regions and South America. In North America, tall hairy agrimony (A. gryposepala) is used interchangeably with European species. In China, xian he cao (A. pilosa) is used medicinally, mainly for bleeding and diarrhoea. Cinquefoil and tormentil are old medicinal herbs with very similar properties to agrimony.

Parts used: Above-ground parts, when in flower in summer.

You can hardly miss this tall and bright summer hedgerow herb, which readily earns its old name of church steeples. The sticky burrs that cling to passers-by lie behind another name, cocklebur.

Agrimony used to be a significant herb in the European tradition, once known as the Anglo-Saxon healing plant ‘garclive’, but it is underused and underrated in modern western herbalism.

Agrimonia eupatoria is the ‘official’ agrimony, but John Parkinson in Theatrum Botanicum (1640) preferred fragrant agrimony, Agrimonia procera, if available. The two can be used interchangeably.

In Chinese medicine, A. pilosa is the species used, and its name, xian he cao, translates as ‘immortal crane herb’, which gives an idea of the reverence in which it is held. It is used in surgery and trauma treatment to stop bleeding, and has been found to be effective against Trichomonas vaginal infections and tapeworms, as also for dysentery and chronic diarrhoea.

Dr Edward Bach chose agrimony as one of his 38 flower essences. It is for people who soldier on, who say everything is fine when it is not, hiding inner turmoil behind a cheerful facade and ignoring the darker side of life. The out-of-balance agrimony person will sometimes resort to alcohol, drugs or adrenaline-producing sports to avoid dealing with life issues.

Agrimony, from Woodville’s Medical Botany (1790–3)

Use agrimony for…

Contemporary American herbalist Matthew Wood has written more deeply about agrimony than anybody else. He uses it as a flower essence, herbal tincture and homeopathic preparation, and has researched it in great detail, expanding on the traditional picture of the plant. Wood calls agrimony ‘the bad hair day remedy’ – imagine the cartoon picture of a cat that has had a fright or put its paw into an electric socket. He has found it works for people with mental and physical tension or work-related stress, with ‘pain that makes them hold their breath’ and a range of other conditions.

… there are few of our wild flowers which are in more esteem with the village herbalist than the agrimony. Every gatherer of simples knows it well.

– Pratt (1857)

Agrimony is a great herb for treating intermittent fever and chills, or alternating constipation and diarrhoea, as it helps the body to recover a working balance between extremes, by releasing the tension and constricted energy that cause such problems.

Pain is very often associated with constriction, with one condition reinforcing the other. Agrimony can help release us from this self-perpetuating spiral, allowing body and mind to relax and restorative healing to begin as blood and energy flow are brought back to normal.

Agrimony is a wonderful wound herb, as it rapidly stops bleeding and also relieves pain. It is thought that a high tannin and vitamin K content account for its remarkable coagulation properties. In the 1400s agrimony was picked to make ‘arquebusade water’, to staunch bleeding inflicted by the arquebus or hand gun.

Agrimony works well for burns too – put tincture directly on the burn and take a few drops internally; repeat until pain subsides.

Agrimony has an affinity for the liver and digestive tract, working to co-ordinate their functions. John Parkinson – herbalist to King Charles I – wrote in 1640 that ‘it openeth the obstructions of the Liver, and cleanseth it; it helpeth the jaundise, and strengthneth the inward parts, and is very beneficiall to the bowels, and healeth their inward woundings and bruises or hurts’. All these are uses borne out today and explained by the herb’s bitter and astringent qualities.

Agrimony’s other main affinity is for the urinary tract, being used to good effect to ease the pain of kidney stones, irritable bladder and chronic cystitis. It can be given safely to children for bedwetting and anxiety about potty training, and to the elderly for incontinence.

Harvesting agrimony

Harvest when the plant is in bloom in the summer, picking the flower spike and some leaves. For agrimony tea, dry them in the shade until crisp, and then strip the flowers and leaves off the stems, discarding the stems. Store in brown paper bags or glass jars, in a cool dry place.

Agrimony tea

Use 1–2 teaspoonfuls of dried agrimony per cup of boiling water, infused for 10 to 15 minutes. The tea has a pleasant taste and odour, and was often used as a country beverage, especially when imported tea was expensive.

Dose: The tea can be drunk three times a day, or used when cool as an eyewash or gargle for gum irritations and sore throats.

Agrimony tea

• eyewash, conjunctivitis

• gargle for mouth & gum or throat problems

• in footbath for athlete’s foot

• in bath for sprains & strained muscles

Agrimony bath

Make a strong tea with a handful of dried agrimony infused in 500ml boiling water for 20 minutes.

Poured hot into a foot bath, this soothes athlete’s foot or sprained ankles; added to a hot bath it helps strained muscles after exercise, and general tension that has stiffened the muscles, back and joints.

Agrimony tincture

To make agrimony tincture, pick the flowers and leaves on a bright sunny day. Pack them into a glass jar large enough to hold your harvest – clean jam jars work well – and pour in enough brandy or vodka to cover them. Put the lid on the jar and keep it in a dark cupboard for six weeks, shaking it every few days. Strain off the liquid, bottle and label.

Amber or blue glass bottles will protect your tincture from UV light. If you use clear glass bottles, you will need to keep your tincture in a dark cupboard. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated and should keep for several years, although it is best to make a fresh batch every summer if you can.

Dose: For tension or interstitial cystitis: 3–5 drops in a little water three times a day; as an astringent to tone tissues (as in diarrhoea), half a teaspoonful in water three times daily.

The tincture can be used as a first-aid remedy for burns. First cool the burn thoroughly by holding it under water running from the cold tap for several minutes. You can just pour a little tincture onto the burn, but for best results, wet a cotton ball with the tincture and hold it in place until the burn stops hurting.

Agrimony tincture

• appendicitis

• urinary incontinence

• potty training

• cystitis

• weak digestion

• diarrhoea/constipation

• tension

• irritable bladder

• asthma

• childhood diarrhoea

• burns

Bilberry

Vaccinium myrtillusBlaeberry, Whortleberry

Bilberries are one of the best herbs for the eyes and eyesight. They also strengthen the veins and capillaries, so are used for fragile and varicose veins.

The leaves are healing too, being effective for urinary tract infections and helping to regulate blood sugar levels.

Ericaceae Heather family Description: A short deciduous shrub with green twigs, pink flowers and bluish-black berries.

Habitat: Heathland, moors and woods with acid soils.

Distribution: Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the north-west and south of England. Circumboreal, across northern Europe, northern Asia, and in western North America.

Related species: Bog bilberry (V. uliginosum) is taller and mainly found in Scotland. The North American blueberry (V. corymbosum) is very similar and is naturalised in Dorset.

Parts used: Berries and leaves picked in summer.

Bilberry is a plant of heath and moor, and woods with acid soils. It is an ancient source of food and medicine in the more upland areas of the British Isles but is found only locally in the east and south. Its long period of use is reflected in colourful regional names: bilberry in northern England, blaeberry or blueberry in Scotland, wimberry in Shropshire, whortleberry in south-eastern England and huckleberry in the Midlands (and later exported to America).

These are wild-growing bilberries, but there is an increasing cultivated acreage of the related and larger, but less tasty, American blueberry (V. corymbosum) in Dorset, Suffolk and other places.

Bilberry is not wild-harvested as a local cottage industry as much as formerly. Gathering bilberries in high summer was once a regular family and social occasion in its growing areas. The main food harvest, usually grain or potatoes, was about to begin, but the timing of early August was just right for a day celebrating bilberries.

Whether Fraughan Sunday in Ireland (from Gaelic for ‘that which grows in the heather’), whort or hurt day in southern England, Laa Luanya in the Isle of Man, and equivalent August picking days in Wales, Scotland and the south-west, the pattern was similar.

Whole communities would visit hill tops, woods, lakes or holy wells, and the more assiduous would pick bilberries in rush or willow baskets. This was a rare day out, and it was a noisy, happy and often drunken occasion. It had predictable consequences, with unmarried boys and girls, off the leash for once, taking the chance to slip away and have more personal kinds of fun.

In Yorkshire, there was a more sober bilberry connection, with bilberry pies the traditional fare of funeral teas: berries mixed with sugar and lemon juice were baked in crusty pastry. Bilberry pies were known there as ‘mucky-mouth pies’ because they stained your hands and mouth blue, though still deliciously worth the trouble.

Bilberry is a wild plant, rarely cultivated, and you must gather it for yourself if you want it. Picking bilberries takes the present-day forager as close to being a hunter-gatherer as one can get. For our ancestors, the harvest was more than recreational, it was an important source of nutrition.

Picking the berries is the perfect excuse to get out into wild nature, as bilberry grows on windswept moors or in heathy woodland. You have to get down to it on all fours to gather, especially on the moors where the plants are very low-growing.

Harvesting the low-lying fruit was and is backaching work, but bilberries are so intensely flavourful and so loaded with nutritional benefits that it is still worth the effort today. Where commercial gathering was undertaken, as in Gwent, the process was sometimes eased by a toothed metal comb or rake, the peigne, named from a French tool, which could remove the berries from their stems. The fruit would be sold via dealers to jam-making factories, and sometimes for dyeing.

The dealers were reported as being annoyed in 1917 and 1918 when the bilberry crop was requisitioned for wartime dyeing needs and they made less on the deal than with the usual jam.

AnthocyaninsThese are a class of flavonoid compounds, found in high levels in bilberries. Anthocyanins are pigments that give red or blue colour to blackberries, elderberries, hawthorn berries, cherries and many other fruits and vegetables. These compounds are powerful antioxidants that are attracting a lot of attention in nutritional research. Their potential health benefits include easing the effects of ageing, reducing inflammation and increasing insulin production. Anthocyanins also protect the blood vessels and have a range of anti-cancer effects.

The berries made more than jam, going into wine and liqueurs in Scotland and on the Continent. As well as a purple dye, in medieval times the bilberry was also tried as a writing ink and paint. Sources of purply-blue paint became increasingly important in the Middle Ages as colouring in depictions of the Virgin Mary’s gown.

It is a pity they [bilberries] are used no more in physic than they are.

– Culpeper (1653)

… the first and most indispensable of all the tinctures in our family medicine chest.

– Abbé Kneipp (1821–97), on fresh bilberry tincture

Bilberries have always been found nutritious and safe to eat fresh; also they are not spiny and only have small internal pips. They are equally good dried for later use in the home or while travelling. However, they are so delicious eaten straight off the bush or fresh with a little cream that you may never have any left to preserve.

Bilberries have remained a favourite for their sweet, deep-toned and slightly astringent flavour in pies, jams and syrups. Commercial jam-makers appreciated them because they have fewer seeds than most other soft fruits and also more pectin. This meant that less sugar was needed to set them, one kilogram of sugar setting two kilos of fruit (other fruit recipes usually specify about equal amounts of fruit and sugar). No wonder bilberry made a cheap and popular jam, one also rich in vitamins C and A, and healthier because it had less sugar.

Use bilberry for…

There’s an interesting story about bilberry jam that neatly links its commercial and medicinal uses. Back in the early days of the Second World War, British pilots going on night missions chanced on the fact that eating bilberry jam sandwiches before flying would improve their nightsight. This all might seem ‘jolly prang’ apocryphal, but research has confirmed that taking bilberry stimulates production of retinal purple, known to be integral to night vision.

The berry’s eyesight benefits are now recognised as also including treatment of glaucoma, cataract and general eye fatigue. Bilberry seems to work by its tonic effect on the small blood vessels of the eye, thereby improving the microcirculation.

So taking bilberry as a tea, syrup, wine, dried fruit and yes, a jam, is officially good for eyes as well as your taste buds!

This is a relatively new feature of bilberry’s repertoire. Mrs Grieve, the modern standard among British herbals, published in 1931, doesn’t mention taking bilberry for eyesight. But, as you come to expect from reading Mrs Grieve, she is thorough on historical uses.

So she mentions that the berries, being diuretic, antibacterial and disinfectant, as well as mildly astringent, are an old remedy for diarrhoea, dysentery, gastroenteritis and the like. A bilberry syrup was traditionally made in Scotland for diarrhoea. Eating a handful of the dried berries works well too.

The berry tea was used for treating bedwetting in children, and to dilate blood vessels of the body, in the same way as described for the eye. The tea is valuable for varicose veins and haemorrhoids, strengthening vein and capillary walls. The berries mashed into a paste are applied to haemorrhoids.

Bilberry leaves are a valuable herbal medicine in their own right, with a slightly different range of qualities, although often used in combination with the berries. The leaves are deciduous, and turn a beautiful red in autumn before they fall.

The particular and long-appreciated effect of the leaves is as an antiseptic tea for urogenital tract inflammation, especially of the bladder. This tea can also be drunk for ulcers, including of the mouth and tonsils.

Bilberry leaves are known to be hypoglaecemic, i.e. they reduce blood sugar levels, and are used successfully in treating late-onset diabetes. This is a slow-acting treatment, however, and taking the tea for long periods may lead to a build-up of tannins that is counter-productive. Some sources suggest using the leaf tea for only three weeks at a time; others say it is best with strawberry leaves.

Bilberry flowers on the Long Mynd, Shropshire, April

Many a lad met his wife on Blaeberry Sunday.

– traditional Irish saying

This fruit and its relatives … have been used traditionally for problems with visual acuity. And scientific research has validated this folk medicine approach.

– Duke (1997)

Julie uses bilberry syrup for eyesight and vascular problems. She says:

‘A friend asked me to make up bilberry syrup for her elderly neighbour. This lady had a lot of aching and discomfort in her legs from varicose veins but was about to go on a long walk, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. She completed the pilgrimage successfully, walking several hundred kilometres, commenting that she could “feel her veins tightening up” when she took the syrup.’

Bilberry combines well with ginkgo tincture or glycerite for eye problems. Julie’s father has been taking this combination ever since he had surgery for a detached retina many years ago. His eye surgeon was initially sceptical, but checked into the research and now regularly recommends both these herbs to his patients.

Julie has used this combination for macular degeneration or retinal tears. Two cases stand out, both people with small tears in the retina. These were not bad enough to warrant surgery, but were intensely worrying to the people concerned, who came to see her to learn if further damage could be prevented.

In both cases, the patients went back to their eye specialists after taking bilberry and ginkgo for several months, and the specialists said words to the effect of ‘but there’s nothing there, we must have made a mistake when we looked at your eyes initially’. Not everyone may be as fortunate, but bilberry certainly has an important role to play in promoting and restoring eye health.

A wider-angle view of bilberry plants on the Long Mynd: picking the berries is a low-down job!

Bilberry syrup

Place your bilberries in a saucepan with just enough water to cover them. Simmer gently for half an hour, then leave to cool before squeezing out as much of the liquid as possible using a jelly bag. For every 500ml of liquid, add 500g demerara sugar, and boil until the sugar has dissolved completely. Pour into sterile bottles, label and store in a cool place.

Dose: 1 teaspoonful daily to maintain good eyesight and vascular health. For more acute problems, take 1 teaspoonful three times daily.

BILBERRY BERRY

Syrup or glycerite

• macular degeneration

• detached retina

• night vision

• cataracts

• capillary fragility

Bilberry glycerite

Fill a jar with bilberries and pour on vegetable glycerine to take up all the air spaces. Put the lid on and shake to get rid of any remaining bubbles, then top up again with glycerine. Keep the jar in a warm place, such as a sunny window ledge, by a range cooker or in an airing cupboard, for two or three weeks, then squeeze out the liquid using a jelly bag. Bottle, label and store in a cool place.

Dose: 1 teaspoonful daily to maintain good eyesight and vascular health. For more acute problems, take 1 teaspoonful three times daily.

Berry brandy pot

Start out with bilberries, placing them in the bottom of a jar or crock and then pouring on enough brandy (or whisky) to cover. You can, of course fill the whole jar with bilberries, or you can leave room and repeat the process with other berries in layers as they come into season – raspberries, blackberries, elderberries and lycium berries. Leave until winter and enjoy as a rather alcoholic treat, which will be packed with antioxidants and do your eyes and your veins a world of good. The liquid can be poured off and added to your syrup or glycerite, or left and enjoyed with the berries as a dessert with cream or however you like them.

Bilberry leaf tea

Use a heaped teaspoonful of the dried leaves per cup or mug of boiling water and leave to infuse for 5 to 10 minutes.

Dose: