Marsh woundwort Stachys palustris

Description: hardy perennial with tuberous roots and hairy, lanceolate leaves. It has dark red or purple flowers in summer borne on tall spikes flowering from the base. It has an unpleasant smell when crushed. Parts used: aerial parts, collected while flowering Actions: antiseptic, antispasmodic, astringent, styptic, tissue healer

Country names often provide a clue to a plant’s healing action and marsh woundwort is no exception. Gerard called it “clown’s woundwort” with the “clown” suggesting that the herb was widely used by the common people.

Herbal BeautyThe leaves of marsh woundwort were once pounded with animal fats to make an ointment for fresh wounds which was deemed so effective that the injury would “heal in such short time and in such absolute manner that it is hard for any that hath not the experience thereof to believe”. Gerard was a great enthusiast for the plant and his Herbal! details how he cured one Edmund Cartwright who had been badly injured in a duel —”thrust through the thorax”— with an ointment of marsh woundwort and a little rose oil.

The herb grows in damp places but will thrive in most suburban gardens. As well as its healing actions, marsh woundwort is antispasmodic and taken as a tea can be helpful for cramp. Folk tradition also suggests the aerial parts as a remedy for gout and vertigo.

Chickweed Stellaria media

Description: a common annual weed forming low- growing mats of slender stems with oval leaves and small, white, star-like flowers appearing from early spring to early autumn.

Chickweed Stet!aria media (greatly enlarged)

Parts used: aerial parts, gathered throughout the year whenever the plant appears

Actions: alterative, anti-rheumatic, cooling, demulcent, mild laxative, vulnerary, counters itching

Chickweed, as the name suggests, is a favourite food for domestic fowl. In Elizabethan times it was fed to caged birds and in the Middle Ages was known as morsus gallinae or hen’s bite. It is a common garden weed, once gathered as a vegetable to be cooked like spinach and tossed in butter or else used as a salad herb.

Soothing and astringent, chickweed’s main medicinal use is in creams and ointments for irritant skin rashes and eczema, or in the first-aid box for burns, boils and drawing splinters. Culpeper suggests combining chickweed with rose petals and adding various pig and sheep fats to create an extremely soothing ointment — it would certainly be a good combination, as rose petals have long been regarded as supportive for”the skin and the soul”. The whole flowering chickweed plant can be made into infused oils and added to bath water to soothe skin problems. Use 10 ml of the infused oil in a warm bath.

Chickweed poultices were once a favourite for rheumatic pains, gout and also varicose ulcers.

Although not so popular as an internal remedy it is particularly cooling and can be worth adding to mixtures for rheumatism and hot, irritant skin conditions.The leaves are a useful source ofVitamin C.

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Traditional Medication, Medical Herbal Healing Wounds, Pains and Ulcer (Marsh woundwort & Chickweed)