Lesson 9: Forsythia
Comments
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Great talk. Thank you. I am going to have to try a flower bitter.
I have always loved to color and promise forsythia bring to spring.
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They are easy to grow, too!
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@judsoncarroll4 Oh yes they are. They are my mothers favorite so I had planned to go out and start new clippings for more bushes
I use them a lot of crafting and weaving
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I saw some forsythia bushes for sale yesterday at Walmart. Guess I will go back and get one and see if I can keep it growing in the pot. I've always loved that bright yellow sign of spring!
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the redbuds are starting to bloom, too!
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@judsoncarroll4 Red buds! One of my favorite trees. I just ordered some, $2 a piece. They are small but will grow
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It will be a little while yet before we have any here.
Looking forward to trying a new taste treat as I have never eaten them before.
I was really surprised at the many uses of forsythia when I took the TCM sections of my herbal education but I have never used it before. Great for viral respiratory issues. Great topic for current issues.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6930541/
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Wow, I did not know about its anti-viral properties!
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If I remember correctly, it is used mostly in formula. As with many things in TCM.
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I have a couple of good TCM books... I'll see what I can find.
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What a great topic! I wait eagerly for the first blossoms every year, but never thought of forsythia for anything except the joy of its flowers brightening early spring. This year I will definitely be trying the bitters, as well as making some cuttings for more forsythia next year!
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Unfortunately, I can't find anything in my texts (they are a few years old) about forsythia being a respiratory antiviral other than it expels wind and heat. But these are the other combinations suggested.
With ban Ian gen (Radix Isatidis seu Saphicacanthi) for toxic heat disorders
With ju hua (Flos Chrysanthemi Indici) for initial stages of an external heat disease
With ma huang (Herba Ephedrae), chi shao (Radix Paeoniae Rubrae) and gan cao (Radix Glycyrrhizae Uralensis) for allergic rashes
I hope you have better luck than I did with TCM texts.
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They go really well with a cucumbers and onions, marinated in Italian dressing, with some feta cheese!
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I'll have to dig mine out, too. I rarely use them anymore. Basically, I got tired of buying so many formulas. So, I returned to my native plants and kitchen medicine. Here is a good website: Traditional Chinese Medicine Integrated Database and this one: You searched for forsythia - Chinese Herbal Medicine (chineseherbinfo.com)
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@judsoncarroll4 very interesting. Thank you. I have always considered forsythia to be a beautiful, but useless bush. The variety we have is sterile. Bees show no interest, no fruit... I was surprised to hear that it might have fruit.
i guess one can eat the blossoms of the sterile one as well. So far it was only for the pleasure of the eyes. It is so beautiful in spring and, as it is sterile, it blossoms really long.
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I never even noticed the fruits until I looked for them.
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Forsythia is also extremely easy to force, so you can enjoy some extra early bloom. I cut some forsythia branches last week and brought to work so that the kids could watch them bloom. I keep them on top of a filing cabinet, but once or twice a day I bring it down and let them touch it gently. It's so cute to see how excited they get.
Now I really want to taste a blossom, but I'll have to do it when the kids aren't around. You can't explain to two and three year olds that this flower is good to eat but others are not. Well, you can, but not all of them will listen.
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I never knew! All these years I have looked down my nose at the oh too common forsythia that my mother-in-law would bring in and force to open. I never paid it any attention. Never admired the dots of bright yellow sunshine lighting up the dining room. Never ever did it enter my thinking pod to eat it. I am now so invigorated with thoughts of my new two week buddy that I just hopped up and ate some of the blossoms from the stems my husband brought in a few days ago. Tra la la la. Oh thank you buds and Buddys for bringing me news that didn't require me to delve too deep and might qualify as "research" as I so needed something to just fall at my feet. Well done!
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Yay for that info. Thank you. I would never have guessed it!
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When I hear forsythia now I think of that movie "Contagion" where Jude Law plays this "conspiracy theorist" who alleges forsythia can cure the virus. That part of the movie annoyed me a bit, in that it totally makes out all herbal medicines as fraudulent.
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Where did you find the red bud for 2 dollar??
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@silvertipgrizz Conservation Department has tree sales in the spring. Check and see if you local conservation does. They are small but red buds grow fast.
They will also start easy from clippings or grafts
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I never thought that I could use forsythia for my health, other than for the Joy of looking at them. I'll have to listen again and maybe try a tincture. I enjoyed the talk.
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Cool! I didn't know that about forsythia. I always loved seeing the forsythias blooming in spring. Now I know that there is that and so much more.
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