How plants literally save lives
The power of plants as medicine is piquing my interest and I invite you to learn about this topic with me
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With back to school energy, let’s learn something new together
A topic that is really piquing my interest of late and something I’m keen to learn much more about is herbalism, defined as ‘the study or practice of the medicinal and therapeutic use of plants, especially as a form of alternative medicine’.
I spotted this Note recently shared by
where he suggests rather than only writing about what you know (the standard dished out writing advice), to also write about what you want to learn (i.e. something you are curious about but have no expertise in). I thought this was such a great idea!And in this spirit, herbalism is that topic for me.
I’m learning more about the properties of plants with each passing year and increasing my repertoire of the ones I use, but it’s a very small tip of a very large iceberg. And so with this article — and perhaps some future ones — I thought we could learn a bit about the power of plants together.
Who’s in?
My first wild food memory
At a family picnic once when I was quite small, my Dad and I went for a wander to seek shade from the summer sun. During a meander through a wooded part of the park, he paused to bend down, grabbed an arbitrary growth of greenery from its base, yanked it clean out of the soil, stripped off the leaves and the outer layer of the stem and ate the thing right there and then in front of me, chomping on it like it was a stick of celery.
He passed me this piece of vegetation to try and I did so, hesitantly. Hesitant because — he’d just eaten a random plant growing in the middle of the goddamn park! Was this allowed? What if it was poisonous? How did he know what it was? What if it had dirt on it? What if a dog had peed on it? I thought you could only eat things that were bought in shops!
It tasted quite nice.
I later learnt we had eaten the stem of a nettle and in case you’re wondering, grab it boldly and it does not sting.1
This experience was the catalyst that triggered an altogether completely different way of me viewing the plant world, beyond the sole three labels I had been presented with in my life so far: 1) irritating weed 2) something pretty to look at 3) food bought in a supermarket.
Other than a handful of blackberries pilfered from a self-seeded bramble in a neighbour’s garden, seeking out and consuming wild foods was not an activity present in my earlier years. But as I’ve progressed through adulthood, an increasing interest in the abundance and wisdom Nature provides through the everyday flora and fauna that thrive alongside us, has developed along with me.
I also began to understand that not only were there a vast array of plants available to eat beyond what a Sainsbury’s fruit and veg aisle lead me to believe, but a huge number of them had medicinal properties too.
The power of plants as medicine
My interest in developing the skills and knowledge required to create and make more of the things I need to live has steadily increased over the past decade or so, something I wrote about in the power of self-reliance.
In 2010 I came across a fascinating book called Grow Your Own Drugs (no, not those kinds of drugs) by ethnobotanist James Wong; some of you may recall an accompanying TV series. The title alone sparked my then still nascent self-reliant leanings and to this day, this book is one of my most frequently referenced from my shelves.
It taught me the many benefits of a large number of some of the most useful species of plant, plants that are also conveniently familiar and highly accessible to us (the book has a very digestible picture-based glossary of James’ top 100 at the back).
I learnt a lot from this book. Such as that rosemary helps memory and concentration, St John’s wort is an antidepressant, violas are good for eczema, lemon balm soothes anxiety, sage is great for colds, turmeric is an anti-inflammatory for arthritic stiffness and garlic will sort out athlete’s foot. To name a very small handful.
In the book’s foreword, James writes:
“The perception of plants as purely ornamental objects is a strange cultural anomaly that has existed in only one civilisation in history - our own. To every other culture, the plants that surround us are a living supermarket, pharmacy, a builders’ merchant and even an off-license - all rolled into one. In just a couple of generations, we in the West have lost a huge amount of knowledge of the varied and vitally important uses of the botanical world.”
He goes on to say:
“The irony, however, is that we are just as reliant on plants for all aspects of our daily survival as we have ever been - we just don’t know it. They are not only responsible for the air we breathe, the food we eat and the stability of the planet’s very climate, but are the basis of a large part of our medicine, with up to 50% of the world’s top proprietary drugs being originally derived from natural sources.”
Humans have been using plants to alleviate and cure illness and ailments since before we developed a written language. Ancient civilisations and Indigenous peoples had and have an acute understanding of the power of the flora in their local lands, creating concoctions of plant material - seeds, herbs, leaves, fruit and bark - to treat a wide variety of health issues.
The use of traditional Chinese medicine dates back thousands of years while 5000-year-old clay slabs from central India are early written evidence of people using plants such as poppies and mandrakes as drugs.
How I harness the power of plants
Like with a lot of new hobbies and interests, my curiosity around the power of plants ramped up during lockdown when I found myself both with a lot of extra time on my hands and a very strong desire to seek solace within Nature from unfolding world events.
I felt a calling to connect with the abundance Nature was gifting - and always had gifted - just without me ever having really noticed before. It was during the first lockdown in spring 2020 that I gathered wild food properly for the first time and foraged two big supermarket bags (the irony) of nettle leaves, known to boost the immune system. I turned them into soup, kimchi, pesto, crisps and more.
In the years since, I regularly collect the following from the wild, either preserving them (e.g. turning them into wine, fruit leathers, sauces), drying them for teas or using them as an ingredient in cooking:
elderberries (powerful anti-viral properties to combat flu)
rosehips (vitamin-rich to keep winter coughs and cold at bay)
haws from hawthorns (heart health)
sloes aka blackthorn (aid digestive complaints and eases rheumatism)
rosebay willow herb (anti-inflammatory)
ginkgo leaves (memory enhancement and concentration)
nettle seeds (for fatigue and adrenal exhaustion)
And from my own small urban garden, I harvest raspberry leaves (ease menstrual cramps and can help combat menopausal symptoms) and nasturtium (antimicrobial, helps loosen and clear phlegm).
I also have a nice little stash of herbal teas and enjoy a pot as part of my evening routine before bed, a different one each night. Some of them I’ve foraged for and dried myself, others I’ve purchased or been gifted.
