Chamazulene alchemy

I just wanted to share this little bit of alchemy. A mom at the school where we do a middle school Herbal Potions elective recently bought the equipment for distilling essential oils. She brought it in for us to experiment with and we did a huge batch of German Chamomile (Chamomilla recutita).

I love showing kids the 'hidden colors' in plants and this is such a great example. The daisy-like white and yellow chamomile flowers conceal minute quantities of lapis lazuli blue chamazulene - a constituent in the essential oil which has wonderful anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties.  The amounts are absolutely tiny and I think it fired the kids' imaginations to realize how  a plant which grows all around can contain something so special and rare.

The Versatility of Chamomile

 

I've grown German Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) for the first time this year and it's a real delight to see the bright daisy-like flowers nodding above the strawberries in my new vegetable patch.

Chamomile is one of those herbs which I think gets kind of overlooked, perhaps because it's just too darn ubiquitous. It's the herbal tea bag you'll find in cafes or smarter hotels. Everyone has heard of it and everyone knows what it's for: it helps you relax and sleep, doesn't it?

Well, yes it does, but there's more to this herb than just a bedtime cuppa. With its slight bitterness and high essential oil content, Chamomile is a fine 'carminative' or soothing digestive herb to reduce gas and bloating when you've overindulged or eaten the wrong of foods. It's also a great quick fix for tension headaches - make a very strong cup of chamomile tea using at least three tea bags or a tablespoon of dried herb to a cup of boiling water. Steep it for at least ten minutes and drink. You'll be surprised at how effective it is.

My teacher used to say that Chamomile is for 'babies of all ages'. It is safe and gentle enough to be used on even tiny ones, I used to make a strong tea of chamomile and lavender to add to my son's bath water when he was little. I'm not a fan of baby washes, which I think are often too harsh and can even make eczema more likely.  Babies are fundamentally pretty clean and the herbs have a gentle anti-microbial action which is helpful round the nappy/diaper area. And and since babies are remarkably porous, the calming and soothing essential oils are absorbed to help reduce colic and soothe and calm the baby. That Latin name, Matricaria translates as 'from the mother' and chamomile is a great herb to use whenever someone needs a little gentle mothering.

If you ever come across the essential oil of German Chamomile, you'll discover that it's a/ really expensive and b/ a deep, dark greenish blue. This is thanks to chamazulene, a constituent in the essential oil which is a superb anti-inflammatory. Like other essential oils, it should only be used externally and should always be diluted before you use it on your skin - chamomile may be gentle, but the essential oil is powerful stuff. A few drops added to a cream or salve will turn it a delightful blue and really help reduce redness and inflammation in skin conditions such as eczema, nettle rash and prickly heat.

Incidentally, this is one of those herbs I think you'll need to plant or buy dried - I don't think I've ever come across it in the wild (though I may just be looking in the wrong places - let me know if you've found some). It's  lower growing cousin, pineapple weed with it's petal-less yellow cone flowers and it's pungent fruity, pineappleish scent is found along paths and dry meadows all summer long and is often confused with true chamomile. There are lots of daisy-ish looking plants out there and it can be hard to tell one from another. Look out for the way the white petals curve back away from the dense, cone-like yellow centre and the flowers and feathery green foliage have that distinctive sweet, apple-y, summery scent when lightly crushed.

'Herbalist Luv Em'

Actually, herbalist quite like them. Herbalist's husband, on the other hand,  'luv em'.

Yes, it's another find at the Farmers' Market! I keep seeing so many thing there which demonstrate how right Hippocrates was when he wrote 'Let food be your medicine and medicine your food'.  This was in the downtown Santa Cruz market last week and the sign obviously caught my eye, as did the hard, shiny little fruits which looked like miniature Red Delicious apples. To eat, they have the crunch of an apple and the dry, fibrous sweetness of a fresh date. I thought they were quite pleasant, but my husband found them strangely addictive and finished off most of the bowl in a couple of days.

I had never come across 'jujubees' before, so I looked them up when I got home. I discovered that they are usually called Jujubes and that the Latin name is Ziziphus jujuba - which I have heard of. It's not a herb we use in Western Herbal Medicine, but it's familiar to my colleagues working with Chinese herbs. A little more research revealed that the fruits are used medicinally throughout Asia and the Middle East. They are usually dried and, as with most Chinese herbs, prepared as a tea or decoction. The main medicinal use seems to be as an immune tonic, with nourishing qualities and, possibly anti-microbial and anti-fungal actions. They are also mucilagenous, so soothing to the throat.

The jujubes are a timely discovery, as the cold and flu season seems to be starting in Santa Cruz and I haven't come across any elderberries yet (though I'm told they grow up in the mountains).  I plan to look out for more, dry them a bit - which I think they will do pretty much by themselves if I leave them on the kitchen windowsill - and try chopping them and  preserving them in honey. Our local Wholefoods has beautiful untreated local honeys which are kept at beehive temperature in huge serve-yourself tanks. I reckon a spoonful of jujube honey in a tea, with sage for a sore throat or boneset for a fever, could make a good remedy to ward of  the viruses my family encounters. I'll let you know how it goes!

Borage for Courage

Something I've been delighted to discover in Santa Cruz is an abundance of Borage - it's in my front yard and all over the beautiful herb and vegetable garden at my son's new school, which is where  I took the photo above. The Borage has bright, star-shaped blue flowers. It's threaded through here with a fabulous orange-flowered climber which is completely new to me, but I'm told is a kind of Hawaiian Passionflower.  I've yet to find out the latin name or whether it has any of the medicinal qualities of the Passiflora incarnata I use. Do let me know if you can enlighten me.

You don't often see Borage growing wild in London, though its rampaging look-alike alkanet splashes many city gardens with blue. Both are members of the boraginaceae family, whose other members include comfrey, lungwort and forget-me-nots. All share characteristic furry, slightly bristly leaves and most have blue flowers.

The saying 'Borage for Courage' comes from a belief that Roman soldiers took the herb before heading into battle. I don't know whether that's true, but it's informed my prescribing on a number of occasions, I really do feel this herb can help people when they are unsure whether they can face the task ahead. I feel there are many aspects to Herbal Medicine. We are taught the science and pharmacology at college and it's crucial to understand those, of course. But as I have said before, I think there is a lot more to the relationship between the plant and animal kingdoms: ways in which the spirit of the plant can interact with our own unconscious.

I would certainly say Borage is an adaptogen, or herb which supports the adrenal glands. And robust adrenals help us face things with courage and fortitude, since they are responsible for  the stress hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol and can become depleted over extended periods of  stress. The best known adaptogens are exotic and expensive herbs like ginseng, I love that there is a very good one which grows perfectly well in gardens, here in California and in England too.

Since I couldn't bring my dispensary with me, I am creating one for myself here, using the herbs I can beg and borrow from kind Santa Cruzians. And thanks to the generosity of Caprice, the doyenne of the school garden, I'm delighted to say that the very borage plant in this photo, as well as a few of its brothers and sisters, are hanging up right here in my house ready to be tinctured tomorrow! A good borage tincture often has a dark blueish tint from the flowers, I'll let you know how it turns out!

Dancing Dandelions in Santa Cruz

My family and I are now getting settled into our new home in Santa Cruz, California. There is a great tradition of herbal medicine here and the mild Mediterranean climate is bliss for a huge range of plants. I'm very excited about getting back to blogging so I can share my observations and discoveries, and a little about how I'm finding being An English Herbalist in Santa Cruz.

To kick off, here is a photo I took at our local Farmers Market last weekend. I wasn't that surprised to see dandelions being sold in this land where salad is almost a religion - after all they are cultivated in France where they know a bit about food. But I wasn't expecting to see such big leaves being sold at this time of year. The small, tender spring leaves are more usually used in salads. I'm wondering whether these are intended to be steamed, like spinach. We're off to the market again tomorrow, so if they are there again, I'll ask the farmer and report back.

I always think dandelions suffer in the UK from their sheer ubiquity and (to be fair, deserved) reputation as a tenacious weed. We all spend money buying rocket from M&S, when an equally delicious bitter leaf is in every garden, park and country lane. But if you do decide to munch on a few dandelion leaves, you may want to remember their French colloquial name: pis en lit (trans. pee in the bed). They have powerful diuretic qualities, so I wouldn't recommend eating a big bunch before a long car journey or trip to the cinema.

Herbalists take advantage of this diuretic property to treat water retention and high blood pressure*. And I love the fact that they are high in potassium - something which is lost when water is passed. A lovely example of how plants so often balance the body's systems.

* Obviously, if you have high blood pressure, please see your doctor or a qualified medical herbalist.

Midsummer Melissa Madness

It's Midsummer's Day! Well, technically today is the summer solstice though many of my more hippy-leaning friends would argue that true Midsummers is the 24th, St John's Day (after whom the wort is named). Either way, it's Midsummer and that is big news for us Herbalists, as it's the time when so many incredible plants are at their best. I love the way the whole of nature seems pregnant with green right now, the air is warm and heavy, and there's so much growth and vigour all around.

It's a busy time for anyone who likes to harvest herbs, but my priority today is to pick my Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis). It grows well in my garden and years ago I got into the habit of rising early on Midsummers morning and going out to harvest it, before sitting at my garden table for some chopping. Crumpled into a kilner jar and topped up with vodka it makes a beautiful golden tincture, preserving the amazing medicinal qualities of the herb for use all year round.

I love to create seasonal rituals, but I like to keep it flexible, with a little variation so that each year feels unique and creates its own atmosphere. I remember one midsummer morning when my son was a baby. I carefully chopped the herb sitting on the lawn, with him lying next to me chewing on a Lemon Balm leaf. Another year it rained all day so I waited for drier weather, as it's never good to pick herbs when they are wet. This morning I picked my Lemon Balm from my friend the Cranio-Sacral therapist Katherine Rigg's garden, as i was there for one of her amazing treatments. I don't know what energy she has created in that garden, but the Lemon Balm grows waist high and is so densely branched that just a handful of stems more than filled my Kilner jar with chopped leaves. It's out there in my garden now, macerating away. I'll check tomorrow evening and as soon as the liquid is golden and heavily scented with the musky citrus of the herb I'll bring it in, carefully strain it through muslin and bottle it for the year ahead.

Unlike pretty much every other tincture I make, which are slowly macerated in a cool, dark place for a few weeks, I like to expose my Lemon Balm tincture to the brightest sun possible for as short a time as I can. In practice, this means that if we are blessed with a hot, sunny midsummer, I leave the tincture outside all day, moving it around so the sun stays on it. On a day like today, when the solstice sun is ducking and diving behind clouds, I'll probably leave it out there for the next two to three days, depending on how the weather shapes up.

The reason for this unconventional method is that what I mostly want to capture in my tincture is the herb's volatile oil. Melissa essential oil is one of the most expensive you can buy, but in my view it has almost magical properties. Applied as an essential oil or a good quality fresh plant tincture, it is a great antiviral. I add it to a lip balm to treat cold sores and it for other viral skin lesions such as herpes, chicken pox or shingles. The tincture or tea can also be taken internally to ward off winter cold and flu viruses.

Like many other members of the vast mint family, Lemon Balm has a great reputation as a digestive herb, so makes a nice tea when you've overindulged. Historically, Lemon Balm was linked to longevity and mental health and there is some interesting research being done on its use to prevent, and maybe even treat Alzheimer's. I'm not sure it's proven as yet, but I can't seen any reason not to suggest my older patients have a little Lemon Balm in their mix or a daily cup of tea. Not least because of the property which i value most highly in this, my favourite herb. And this is its remarkable ability to cheer people up! Despite a pretty scientific training as a herbalist, I can offer no chemistry-based explanation for this. But I have seen this effect time after time. I'm not talking about treating serious depression here, but rather giving a happy little lift to the day. I use it in this context all the time, for myself as well as the people I treat. In fact I'm off to run my Midsummer's herb walk in an hour or so and will be having a glug of last years harvest on the way out the door, to add an extra spring to my step.

This tendency to cheer makes Lemon Balm the ultimate party herb. Chill the tincture in the freezer and serve tiny shots to your guests as they arrive (make sure non-drinkers know it has alcohol) or add a glug to Pimms for an extra lemony dimension. Even the most reticent guest will be in animated conversation before you know it.