Yarrow, the Original Soldier's Herb
Comments
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It's a pretty flower to have in the garden, too!
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I grew yarrow in my garden, but I think it all died out. Maybe some of it reseeded and will be back later this year!
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Great article as usual, Judson.
I'm glad that PFAF mentioned the "holy trinity of herbs" for colds & flus (all respiratory illnesses). Yarrow, Mint and Elderflower. Herbalists around the world still use this formula, sometimes adjusting it to add herbs that are specific to the symptoms of the patient, but the base formula is widely used and an important formula to remember.
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That is a classic combo... I REALLY need to plant some elder trees!
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Our habitats are so similar, I'm surprised you don't have elder growing everywhere. We have the red elder here and about 2 hours south we have the blue elder. The blue elder can be used like the domestic black elder but the red one is more poisonous. However, the red elder flowers can be used in the same formulas as the black.
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We have nigra, canadensis and racemosa, but none convenient to my house so I can just walk out barefoot and harvest.
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I just had to add my two cents- yarrow is the plant that made me believe herbs can be used for healing. I grew some in a pot one year and it came in handy after I sliced my finger with a full knife. It was my first time using a spit poultice, and the result was remarkable except that I left it on so long it stained my finger green.
A few weeks later, my husband was putting something up on a high shelf in the kitchen and it fell and sliced his nose straight across. It was hard to look at! He was dripping blood and looked AWFUL. The kids and I ran out and did another spit poultice. We took it off within ten minutes and it looked as if a corpse had been cut. Not a drop of blood. We never touched the cut again with anything else and it healed perfectly. No scar, and even without a bandaid it was so clean that only one little girl noticed at church that week. I wish I had thought to take pictures because it was nothing short of miraculous.
I signed up for an herb course after that.
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Very cool!
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I brought home a yarrow plant from a gardening meeting from a nearby village. Planted it, and we’ll see this year if it grows again. Now i have an idea how to use it. Can only parts of it be healing, or the whole plant (leaves, stem and flowers)?
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The whole plant has uses, fresh or dry.
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I dug some up by the lake near us and brought it home- it looks like it's coming up strong now. I hope it'll flower this year.
I love yarrow. I made a tincture and put it in a spry bottle for cuts and scrapes. A bit of a sting from the alcohol but it works so great.
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it is early spring here and the first plants appear. Among them -yarrow- beautiful tiny leaves. We eat lots of salad with wild plants and I add yarrow leaves every time I make one
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I had not thought of it as a salad herb, but the leaves do have a certain spiciness when fresh!
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It is definitely a tough herb - survives transplanting very well
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@judsoncarroll4 I love young yarrow leaves in salad. Young leaves are soft and kind of spicy. I also add them to herbal curd herbal butter.
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@jowitt.europe I’ll be trying yarrow in salads along with fresh fiddleheads
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I had horrible nose bleeds when I was a kid. Wish I had known about Yarrow for staunching the nose bleeds, (or actually, wish my parents had known about it). My dad had such sever nosebleeds when he was young that they ended up cauterizing his nose. That treatment ruined his sense of smell.
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I love Yarrow, but never though of using it in a salad. When I cut myself last October (pretty badly) the first thing I did was grab some Yarrow. It stopped the bleeding almost instantly. It was a Sunday and our local clinic wasn't open and the nearest place I could go was over an hour away. Stopped the bleeding, sealed the cut with super glue, threw on a couple pairs of rubber gloves and succeeded at butchering a hog that day and another the next.
Did good till I finally went to our local clinic and they push a small plastic stick into the cut to "see how deep it was" Not sure what they hit but it hurt like crazy and even today It still throbs fairly often. Did not hurt at all until they pushed that stick in their.
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