Spruce Tips

Spruce tips (Picea spp) are ready for the picking! Each year conifer trees grow by producing tender green shoots that eventually darken and harden into needles. Right now the bright green ends can be harvested for warming, vitamin C- and mineral-rich teas for cold and flu season. Spruce tips can soothe a cough or a sore throat or boost immune function ahead of an illness. Their antimicrobial and pain-relieving properties can also be put to use as a topical for bug bites and other skin conditions. Other conifer trees besides spruces can be used in this way too.

Raspberry

Rubus idaeus or the red raspberry has been used as a tasty, nutritive and medicinal tea for hundreds of years. Raspberry leaf tea is somewhat of a counterpart to red clover, red clover being more supportive of the estrogen part of the cycle and raspberry leaf being more supportive of progesterone. Raspberry leaf tea contains vitamin C, E, B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. It’s tightening and astringing, good for toning the digestive tract and uterus; it’s often taken during pregnancy in preparation for childbirth.

Wild Rose

Wild rose (Rosa spp.) in our area is sometimes the multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), and sometimes other species or crosses. The wild rose is much maligned, but the flowers can be used as food and medicine! Aromatic when picked at the right time, they can be carefully dried for tea or packed in honey or salt to capture the scent, then used in culinary pursuits. The fruits, called rose hips, are Vitamin C-rich and are a sour trail nibble in the fall. The rose is said to be medicine for the heart. In Chinese medicine, mei gui hua, the Rosa rugosa or wrinkled rose, is used to benefit circulation and break stagnation.

Goldenrod

Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) blends into the background before it flowers, but when those blooms come on in the late summer, they are an iconic upstate New York presence! Goldenrod is said to have an affinity for the urinary tract, as is often said of yellow flowers. This plant is harvested when in flower and produces a lovely tea. A spoonful of fall goldenrod honey in such a tea is an especially delight-producing way to take a medicine for the urinary tract and kidneys.

Yarrow

Not yet in flower, but preparing to unfold… Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is maybe the most common choice for an herbalist’s favorite plant. I’m no exception! This is an amazing first aid ally - the above-ground herb from leaf to flower is an unparalleled wound healer. The scientific name, of course, refers to Achilles, as his invincibility came from being dipped in yarrow up to his heel, which his mother held as she dipped him into the pot. Yarrow is a powerful diaphoretic when drunk warm, serving double duty as an antimicrobial / sweat-inducer, and is thus a fabulous choice for febrile illnesses. I recommend combining it with a sweeter, warmer and less bitter, such as hyssop or monarda/bee balm! If drunk cool, it’s a diuretic and combines well with goldenrod for urinary tract infections. Yarrow is seen as a symbol of strong boundaries, and its flower essence is used for this energetic purpose.

Dame’s Rocket

Those pink flowers belong to Dame’s Rocket (Hesperis matronis) - and the white-flowered varieties can be seen along the roadside at this time of year, too! Dame’s rocket flowers are one of my favorite salad garnishes. The flowers are sweet-tasting and so beautiful in a spring salad of arugula, radishes and green peas. The four-petaled bloom gives away this plant’s heritage as a Brassica relative, and as you might then guess, the young leaves can be eaten as a bitter green as in many other Brassica species. When in flower, the above-ground parts can be used as a diaphoretic, expectorant and diuretic.

Red Clover

Red clover (Trifolium pratense) is one of my favorite tea herbs. It’s a great nutritive, making not only vitamin-rich but tasty teas. The leaf can be used, and it’s this that we often see filling the bulk of containers when red clover is purchased in commerce. But it’s the pink flowers that are a moistening, sweet remedy that is the benefit of harvesting the herb yourself. Red clover has estrogenic properties and has a history of use in helping regulate hormones especially during menopause. It also has history as a cancer fighter and lymphatic system drainer. It is often called a “blood purifier,” assisting the body in detoxification.

Staghorn Sumac

Rhus typhina, the Staghorn Sumac (not poison sumac, Toxicodendron vernix!) occupies forest edges and is a source of striking red color in the landscape via its fruits in the summer and its leaves in the fall. This is primarily a sour and astringent medicinal. The leaf and stem contains tightening tannins and can be used externally for skin conditions or internally to stop bleeding and diarrhea, and also possess diuretic properties. The red ripe fruits are the most commonly used part of this wild plant; if the fuzzy horns of fruits are picked before bugs get to them, they can be brewed into a sour and tasty pink lemonade-like drink.

Common Mallow

Common mallow (Malva neglecta) can be used like Marshmallow, one of my favorite plants. The leaves are an edible salad green and tea herb, and the flowers are a sweet and bland-tasting garnish as well. The roots produce a epithelial tissue-healing mucilage that can be harvested by soaking the roots in cold water.

Sassafras

Fragrant Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) is a culinary and medicinal plant. Its leaves thicken stews and soups, as in gumbo - they create file powder. The bark and rootbark release a familiar “root beer"-like scent when scratched or scraped. This is due to the presence of safrole, a compound with a complicated legal history. Safrole was banned in the 1960s due to research pointing to hepatotoxic effects. Safrole is also a precursor to the manufacture of the drug MDMA, and as such its trade is heavily monitored. Sassafras’s medicinal uses include diuretic, anti-inflammatory, detoxifying and pain-relieving properties.