A few weeks ago, I can across a stand of plants that I don’t get to see very often: Texas Madrone trees (Arbutus texana). These small, beautiful trees are native to the Texas Hill Country, growing on limestone hills from here to west Texas, southeastern New Mexico, and down into Mexico. Texas Madrone bark is smooth to the touch, pinkish, and it darkens and peels away from the tree as it ages. The leaves are simple, thick and leathery.
A few days before I found this small but healthy stand of small Madrone trees, I had been wondering about my “UTI Free” formula. “UTI” stands for “urinary tract infection”. I designed the formula to help clear out a bad UTI, a common problem experienced by many women [especially those in their 20s] and the formula works quite well. However, the formula relies on Manzanita (Arctostaphylos sp.), a wild medicinal plant that I gathered last time I was out in Arizona, but which does not grow wild here in Central Texas. What was I going to do when I ran out of Manzanita? What could I use locally that would have the same kind of astringent effect on the urinary tract?
When I came across the Madrone stand, I knew right away the answer to my question. Madrone leaves can be substituted for Manzanita (as well as for its better known sister herb Uva-Ursi) in teas, sitz baths, and yes, tincture formulas such as my UTI Free formula.
I carefully gathered some leaves – just a few from each tree, so few that no one would be able to tell that I had even been there – and took them back to my office kitchen to tincture them. Once again my beloved plants had come to my aid!
Monday, October 25, 2004
Sunday, October 3, 2004
Gumweed (Grindelia sp.)
I am thrilled! Tomorrow I get to head west of Austin, into the beautiful Hill Country, and gather some gumweed (Grindelia sp.). My friend Shakti says it’s blooming! and so we will go to gather this old and much-needed friend.
The last time I gathered gumweed was 1997. It was actually my first ever wildcrafting trip; my friend Deirdre and I set out to study with Michael Moore (the herbalist not the filmmaker) in the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado. But I ran out of that batch of gumweed tincture years ago, and have been unable to find it since. Until this spring.
This member of the composite family (Asteraceae) has yellow flowers (no surprise if you know the composite family), sticky leaves, and even stickier flowerheads. This sticky resin may serve us in two ways as medicine: the first, as a first rate bronchitis remedy, and the second, my favorite, ... as a poison ivy remedy. We just gather the sticky flowerheads to make poison ivy remedy tincture.
One customer in particular is very poison ivy prone, and has been asking me for more gumweed for the past two years. The first time she used it, I told her to take the tincture internally, and to cut out spicy foods, dairy, and alcohol. She reported definite relief from the itching, and the poison ivy cleared up more quickly than usual.
So for all of you that are poison ivy magnets, give us a couple of weeks for the tincture to macerate, then go ahead and place your order for gumweed tincture, the poison ivy remedy supreme!
The last time I gathered gumweed was 1997. It was actually my first ever wildcrafting trip; my friend Deirdre and I set out to study with Michael Moore (the herbalist not the filmmaker) in the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado. But I ran out of that batch of gumweed tincture years ago, and have been unable to find it since. Until this spring.
This member of the composite family (Asteraceae) has yellow flowers (no surprise if you know the composite family), sticky leaves, and even stickier flowerheads. This sticky resin may serve us in two ways as medicine: the first, as a first rate bronchitis remedy, and the second, my favorite, ... as a poison ivy remedy. We just gather the sticky flowerheads to make poison ivy remedy tincture.
One customer in particular is very poison ivy prone, and has been asking me for more gumweed for the past two years. The first time she used it, I told her to take the tincture internally, and to cut out spicy foods, dairy, and alcohol. She reported definite relief from the itching, and the poison ivy cleared up more quickly than usual.
So for all of you that are poison ivy magnets, give us a couple of weeks for the tincture to macerate, then go ahead and place your order for gumweed tincture, the poison ivy remedy supreme!
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