IMAGINE YOUR OWN SACRED space, filled with just the right plants for your needs. You are the creative designer for this garden retreat. In designing your medicine wheel gar den, perhaps you want it to be sparsely filled with just a few select healing herbs so that other creative accents can be enjoyed. You may want a low, lush alpine or rock garden of bearberry, ger, pennyroyal, partridgeberry, pipsissewa, purslane, heal-all, he-patica, strawberry, and wintergreen growing around special standing rocks, a stone bench, and a small fountain or fish pool. If you choose a shaded woodland site, you might select ferns and herbs such as maidenhair, ginseng, hepatica, goldthread, blood-root, birthroot, wintergreen, pipsissewa, and partridgeberry, which thrive in this environment.
When I was planning my first medicine wheel garden years ago, I began by watching the site for months to find out what plants flourished there. I had chosen a space beyond the meadow’s edge, below our apple orchard, now frequented by a growing herd of deer. The sweetgrass is very fragrant in the hot sun. Stepping into the shady hedgerow requires effort to push through the tangle of dogwood and alder shrubs supporting bittersweet vines. Farther into this green jungle a few maple and hickory trees support wild grapes and Virginia creeper vines above an understory of barberry, cinquefoil, jewelweed, and goldenrod. Jack-in-the-pulpit (Indian turnip) peeks out of the dark, moist areas, and speedwell trails over the ground where sun filters into the rich soil.
Gradually I brought in a selection of favorite herbs and mosses to accentuate the plants already at home here that I wanted to continue to grow. Each year I add more sweetgrass and black cohosh, two of my favorite herbs. I believe that it is important, too, to choose plants that draw the hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. Many gardeners also want to see a balance of wildlife around and within their property. The animals are important residents, especially the rabbits, foxes, skunks, and deer. Fortunately, they are not usual predators on most of these native herbs.
Whatever your site—woodland, meadow, or rocks—some combination of plants described in this chapter will suit your garden preferences. Each entry identifies the herb, its closest relatives and family, and describes the history of its uses and how to grow the plant and harvest specific parts in the proper season. Included are many appealing choices of herbs for different climates and elevations, and special attention is given to drought-hardy plants suitable for xeriscaping.
An Early Compendium of Native Plants
The earliest written and illustrated work on North American plants used in medicine is the 1552 Badianus Manuscript (Codex Barberini) in the collection of the Vatican Library. This manuscript, written in Nahuatl and Latin, bears illustrations of 184 Mesoamerican plants and trees on sixty-three painted folios, each accompanied by detailed descriptions of the illnesses for which the plants were used and their curative properties. The codex is divided into thirteen chapters devoted to either a group of maladies similar in type or collections of ailments that affect certain portions of the body. Two Aztec scribes painted and lettered this work: Marinus de la Cruz, a traditional healer, and Juan Badianus, who translated the text from Nahuatl into Latin.
Plants have very special growth needs, and some plant associations work better than others. Because of this, you would not find all the plants described here together in one garden. Each entry notes appropriate plant companions that might work well together in your medicine wheel garden.
Plants, like people, have immediate relatives forming a closely knit group as well as a larger extended family. In classifying plants into these related groups, the Latin binomial (two identifying names) given to each plant species provides useful clues to identity. The first Latin name, which is capitalized, refers to the genus to which a plant belongs. A genus embraces closely related individual species. The second Latin name, not capitalized, designates the species itself. For example, American ginseng has the Latin name, Panax quinquefolius. Panax identifies the genus including various ginseng species, and quinquefolius alludes to a distinguishing feature of American ginseng: its five-part leaves. Scientific and sometimes common plant names may also embody remarkable information and history, useful to gardeners as well as to herbalists and healers. American ginger’s Latin name, Asarum canadense, suggests that this lovely low native herb with heart-shaped leaves was first identified in regions of Canada and eastern North America. Sometimes this history borders on the magical and mystical, as with the angel-like angelica, which was long believed to protect those who wore it or ate it from the plague or witchcraft.
Some of our native plant names may seem musty and old-fashioned, and some are even misnomers, yet they reveal much about how the system of observing and learning plants has evolved. Most important, this two-hundred-year-old system of identifying plants holds up well today and helps to banish confusion. As you shall see and read, most of these plants have many colorful English and Indian names, reflecting their long history of use on this continent. For example, poke may be called poke-weed, scoke, poocan, pigeon berry, or cancer root—among other names—in different regions. And yet it is universally identifiable by its Latin name, Phytolacca americana. This helps when ordering and buying specific species for your medicine wheel garden.
Just as each species belongs to a genus, every genus belongs to a much larger family, indicated by the Latin endings -ae or -aceae. The family names help us to see plants not just as individuals but as members of a network of relationships that share common characteristics. Their similarities and differences can be intriguing and useful tools for gardeners. For example, one vital plant family, the Solanaceae (nightshade family), includes some of our most delicious vegetables (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant) and some striking poisons. Chili peppers, jimson weed, and tobacco are among the Solanaceae in the medicine wheel garden. As you will see, each has special merit. Most nightshades are “heavy feeders;” they take a lot of nutrients from the soil, and so they prosper with additional feeding and top dressing around the plants during the height of the growing season. Each nightshade member also exhibits some degree of toxicity in its foliage, and many bear toxic fruits. In the case of tobacco, native people used the somewhat toxic foliage as a powerful substance for ritual use, prayer, and offerings.
Plant family names are capitalized, but unlike species and genus names, they are not written in italics. While more than three hundred plant families have been recorded, most gardeners need concern themselves only with some twenty-four. Among these, the main plant families focused on here are the Compositae (daisy), Labiatae (mint), Liliaceae (lily), Ericaceae (heath), Solanaceae (nightshade), and Ranunculaceae (buttercup). You also will get to know more than a dozen other plant families that encompass some of the key healing herbs important for the medicine wheel garden.
Each of the special plants pictured and discussed here has its unique history of human use. The profiles trace patterns from past to present, bringing together traditional American Indian medicinal plant uses with other historical herbal practices and finishing with how the plant is used today. For example, in both North America and Europe, arnica has a long, illustrious history of serving people’s needs for pain relief, for which it continues to be quite valuable. Some other plants that now serve for one or two needs have a background of many more varied uses. American Indian herbal uses were often quite diverse. Many of these traditional uses continue to be modern American Indian uses and valuable to other health care practitioners. Where possible, profiles include related species that show how you can widen your choices for your medicine wheel garden.
Each plant profile includes:
Plant name and classification
Background and plant “personality”
Size and distinguishing features
American Indian traditional uses
Plant part(s) and uses for healing
How this herb is used today
Cautions (if any)
Growth needs and propagation methods
Garden companions
The more we nurture and encourage the plants growing in our gardens, the more we enrich our own spiritual and aesthetic life. Propagation, the different means we employ as gardeners to promote the growth of plants and to increase their numbers, is a fascinating aspect of gardening. The underground parts of a plant, central to its vitality, are also commonly the key to propagation. As you will notice in the following illustrations and plant profiles, what we usually refer to as a plant’s “roots” or “root system” may vary considerably. The form that the root system takes determines the best way to propagate the plant successfully. Botanists and gardeners have specific names for different root forms: rootstock (found in, for example, angelica), runners (strawberry), corms (jack-in-the-pulpit), bulbs (onion), rhizomes (iris and ferns), tubers (groundnut), and stolons (wintergreen).
Understanding how to deal with different kinds of roots is particularly important because some of our native herbs have diminishing populations in the wild yet thrive under propagation. American ginseng, bearberry, cardinal flower, butterflyweed, maidenhair fern, and lady’s slipper are all on this list. Your medicine wheel garden has a secondary benefit of possibly replenishing native herbs in other gardens and surrounding areas.
An easy way to propagate perennials, such as ginger, ginseng, bloodroot, and mayapple, is by digging up and dividing their root-stocks, as most gardeners call them. This work is best done while the plant is dormant, usually in late fall, winter, or early spring— also the time when herbalists seek the rootstocks for medicinal uses. Cut the rootstock with a sharp, clean knife and make sure that each new piece has at least one bud, or “eye,” and roots (depending upon the species) attached. Corms and bulbs of plants such as wild onion and garlic, jack-in-the-pulpit, and trillium usually develop small offsets on the side of the main growth as it matures. These little cormlets and bulblets can also be removed with a sharp knife when the plant is dormant. Each will develop into a new plant.
There’s nothing new about propagating and transferring plant populations. Native Americans have been moving key plants around this continent for millennia, especially since they began to establish permanent settlements. Particularly valuable medicine plants such as pennyroyal, wintergreen, ginseng, bee balm, blueberry, blue cohosh, and black cohosh could be readily established in some areas of settlement. Herbalists have always gone into the meadows and woods to seek other wild plants that could not easily be managed closer to dwelling sites.
Should You Be Your Own Herbalist?
Certainly natural is good, but your own garden may not always be as reliable as the local health food store for larger amounts of healing herbs. Rather than digging up your own echinacea and black cohosh roots to prepare healing remedies, simply working among these healthy plants may strengthen your appreciation of the herbal supplements you purchase and use. On the other hand, you can enjoy years of happy harvesting from your medicine wheel garden for simple herbal teas, tisanes, potpourris, and other herbal foods and products if you gather carefully, giving plants ample time to replenish. In Part III you will find additional recipes and harvest details for your garden, along with more practical health care suggestions and ceremonial items you might create.
This continent’s earliest gardeners must have felt a deep kinship with the earth. Some of the ritual objects found by scientists working at sacred sites reflect a desire to give beautiful works of craftsmanship to the earth. Perhaps these offerings were meant to ensure greater harvests. The sense of ceremony and respect reminds everyone that plants and harvesting are much more than chores. They are direct communion with the earth and the Creator.
Angelica atropurpurea
Umbelliferae (parsley family)
Angelica has a long history of uses around the world, from practical to magical. Its name, meaning “of angels; angel like,” comes from Latin herba angelica (angelic herb), reflecting the importance of angelica as a perceived preventive to plague, witchcraft, and poison. The deeply cut compound leaves of the tall, graceful plants can sometimes look like “wings” fluttering in the summer breeze. The species designation atropurpurea means “dark purple;” it certainly describes the round ruby stems of this herb.
As the family name suggests, angelica grows like parsley, producing flowers in big compound umbels—multiple flowers on stalks that branch from a central stem and grow to a uniform height. The small, greenish-white flowers cluster at the top of sturdy, hollow stems during the summer months, ripening into clustered aromatic seeds by late summer. Robust in form, angelica will grow up to six feet tall.
About fifty species of aromatic herbs in this genus are native to the Northern Hemisphere. Angelica grows wild from Labrador south to Maryland and west to Indiana, Minnesota, and Iowa. In the wild it appears to grow prolifically one year and then disappear for a year or two before it resumes growing in healthy profusion.
Traditional uses: The Missouri River Indians highly prized this plant, which they called lagonihah. Young leaves were eaten to relieve digestive problems and also used as a hunting lure. During the late 1600s, the Virginia Indians were known to eat so much angelica that they smelled of it. These eastern Algonquians apparently planted the seeds and unused portions of the root to ensure that they would have more, as they also used this herb for healing, hunting, and fishing. Some tribes used the pounded roots and dried powdered stems to reduce skin tumors.
Great Lakes Indians valued angelica as a poultice on swellings and tumors. The roots were cooked and then pounded into a pulp and applied to the surface of the skin where pain and swelling persisted. The poultice was noted for pain relief. The Canadian Malecite Indians used angelica roots to treat colds, flu, coughs, and sore throat. It was also said to promote mental clarity and a sense of well-being. Many tribes used the dried leaves mixed into their tobacco to enhance the fragrance and taste. Iroquois traditional healers used this herb as a preventative for the wrath of ghosts and on the “spirit plate” for certain ceremonies.
Modern uses: Today, herbalists recommend angelica for many needs. Both American and European angelica, A. archangelica, are used to aid digestion and to improve circulation, and as a general tonic. Chinese angelica, A. sinensis (dang gui), is a valued blood tonic and is often used in cooking. The whole plant strengthens the liver and has an antibiotic effect in the body. The rhizome is the part most valued for its medicinal properties. Angelica stems and roots are also useful in cooking, especially for winter vegetables and condiments.
Extensive commercial uses for angelica range from flavoring liqueurs, such as Benedictine and Chartreuse, to gin and vermouth. The young leaves and shoots may be eaten in salads; the greenish-red stems are candied or preserved in syrup and used as condiments. The essential oil is added to perfumes, shampoos, ointments, creams, and soaps.
Cautions: Be careful to avoid angelica’s harmful relatives, poison hemlock and water hemlock. These plants lack angelica’s aromatic quality.
Growth needs and propagation: Favoring ditches, stream banks, and bottomlands in the wild, angelica prefers rich, moist, well-drained soil and partial shade. The best way to propagate angelica is by its seeds, which have a short viability. Sow them as early as possible where you want the plants to grow. Do not cover them, as they need light to germinate. Our native angelica is basically an annual herb, which must self-sow in order to regenerate. If you cut the bloom stalk early, the plant might live for another year. Work to establish a small colony of angelica plants in the medicine wheel garden, as they are tall, strikingly attractive, and almost insect-proof
Companions: Angelica will grow fairly well in the company of hellebore, jack-in-the-pulpit, sweetgrass, cardinal flower, blue flag, and sweet flag. Elderberry shrubs are also good companions.
Arnica mollis and other species
Compositae (daisy family)
These dwarf sunflowers with downy opposite leaves produce their yellow daisylike blossoms from June through August in flower heads two to three inches across. They thrive in sandy, rocky soils and tend to colonize entire areas, especially old fields. This naturalizing habit enables the various species of arnica to be gardened and farmed with excellent results. They seem to prosper in the medicine wheel garden and will spread over an entire area without choking out other plants.
Arnica is modified Latin of unknown origin. The species name, mollis, means “soft, flexible, and mild.” Other well-known species names in the closely related arnica group include A. Montana, “of the mountains,” and our native western species, A. cordifolia, “with heart-shaped leaves,” an attractive, distinguishing feature.
Thirty or so species of arnica grow worldwide, favoring higher elevations in both woodsy and open places. They include nine native species, which greatly resemble their European cousin A. montana. There are also several East Asian species and the alpine arnica, A. alpina, which grows around the world’s northernmost regions and stays close to the ground, rarely reaching more than fifteen inches in height.
Both A. amplexicaulis and A. chamissonis are native across the western United States into Canada and southern Alaska, where subspecies grow. Much the same is true for A. latifolia, which can grow to two feet tall, and the diminutive A. lessingii, which rarely grows to more than ten inches. The arnicas flourish in northern mountain states and southern Canadian provinces up into the Yukon and Alaska.
Traditional uses: Native to Europe, A. montana is widely distributed in our western regions and is planted in many herb gardens. Also called leopard’s bane and mountain tobacco, this species was officially listed in the USP (United States Pharmacopeia) from 1820 to 1851, when doctors prescribed it for external pain relief. Flowers and roots of arnica have been used in medicinal preparations for centuries. The Catawba Indians used A. acaulis, which they called “water root,” in a tea that was applied like a liniment to relieve back pain. Catawba herbalist Carlos Westez (Red Thunder Cloud) often advised the use of this root tea as a rub for sore back, leg, and arm muscles. Scientists credit American Indians with discovering the medicinal healing values of their native species of arnica. According to Virgil Vogel in his book American Indian Medicine, the four major native species used by various tribes are A. fulgens, A. sororia, A. cordifolia, and A. caulis. Presumably, tribal Indians knew the use of other species of arnica as well.
Modern uses: Flowers of heartleaf arnica, A. cordifolia, and broadleaf arnica, A. latifolia, are harvested during early blooming, as they ripen and turn to fluff with maturity. The rhizomes are harvested after the plant has died back to the ground in autumn. All plant parts are active and used medicinally.
Today, commercial interests in arnica continue to increase. Many western acres are sown in arnica to meet growing international market demands. Farming arnica as a subcrop on some western ranches and reserves provide extra annual income for some ranchers.
Arnica ointment and compresses are effective treatments for bruises, muscle pain, sprains, and backaches. Arnica speeds healing by locally improving the blood supply and functions as a powerful anti-inflammatory agent, increasing the reabsorption of internal bleeding. Homeopathic dilutions (taken internally in minuscule amounts) are generally for shock and pain. Trained herbalists and naturopaths treat angina and stimulate circulation with small doses of arnica tincture or decoction, internally and externally.
Cautions:Arnica preparations should not be taken internally or used on broken skin. Arnica is poisonous. The only safe internal use is in the minute homeopathic dose. Dermatitis can result from external use for those who have sensitive skin. It is best to have use of arnica monitored by a health care professional.
Growth needs and propagation: Arnica will grow in most soils but prefers a slightly acidic, well-drained soil in full sun. Plants will tolerate light shade. This herb can be easily propagated from seeds and cuttings. Spread the seeds sparsely over prepared ground in late summer and cover them with barely an inch of fine soil. Pat this area down gently and cover it with a light layer of leaf mulch. Plants should sprout in late spring. Allow them to grow and develop some vigor before transplanting them to the desired location. Root cuttings can be made in late summer. Each two-inch piece of root, planted two inches deep, should produce a new plant by the following spring.
Companions: These diminutive sunflowers grow handsomely under angelica plants, rudbeckias, and elderberry shrubs in the medicine wheel garden. Allow arnicas to colonize their own small area in your garden and enjoy their golden blossoms throughout summer.
Asarum canadense
Aristolochiaceae (birthwort family)
Known as Canada snakeroot, colicroot, and Indian ginger, this beautiful native wildflower and medicinal herb grows from southern Canada south to North Carolina and Tennessee, and as far west as Kansas and Missouri. The species name, canadense, suggests Canada, the region where the plant was originally identified. The Latin genus name, Asarum, means “heart-shaped,” referring to the leaves.
The soft leaves, two to seven inches broad, top seven- to ten-inch velvety stems that divide just above the ground. In spring, a single, low reddish-brown tubular blossom with a slightly creamy interior develops in the notch of the stem division. These spring blooms lie almost on the ground and are pollinated by carrion beetles and ground insects drawn to the slightly rank odor.
Traditional uses: Native Americans used ginger as a primary digestive aid and valuable heart medicine. Ojibwa Indians of Lake Huron regions called it pegamagabow and seasoned many differentüfoods with the roots. It was also considered a powerful protection against unseen
forces or illness. Ginger roots were worn/ and carried as charms as well as used to treat certain heart conditions, headache, colds, sore throat, coughs, and cramps.
The Illinois and Miami Indians used wild ginger roots to ease childbirth and relieve pain. They called the plant akiskiouamoui, “herb of the rattlesnake,” and applied pieces of the root to snakebite injuries and also chewed it. Throughout the tribal northeast American ginger, also called wild ginger, had many special applications and added its strength to vital formulas.
Modern uses: Wild ginger roots contain the antitumor compound aristolochic acid, which also has antimicrobial properties. This herb substitutes for oriental ginger in many medicinal preparations and continues to be used in ways similar to those traditionally favored by American Indians.
Today we are much more familiar with the commercial oriental ginger, Zingiber officinale (Zingiberaceae), known as sheng jian in Chinese medicine. It is a close relative of turmeric, Curcuma longa. This aromatic rhizome contains high levels of a volatile oil that is warming and stimulating. It acts as a circulatory stimulant given to relieve headache, fever, and aching muscles and also relieves nausea, morning sickness, and motion sickness.
Growth needs and propagation: American ginger is an easily cultivated perennial. It prefers rich, moist woodland earth, and thrives in shade or dappled shade. The low-growing, aromatic plants are often set in shaded show gardens, interspersed with clumps of European ginger, A. europaeum. Sometimes growing in dense colonies in the areas they favor, these creeping, slender plants also form a lovely ground cover along wooded pathways and foundation areas.
It is easiest to increase American ginger by taking root cuttings with buds and roots in the late fall. These should be planted in rich, moist soil at a depth of about two inches. It is best to mulch ginger plants with generous layers of leaves for the winter.
Companions: American ginger grows well with maidenhair fern, goldenseal, goldthread, hepatica, and Indian turnip, and underneath bayberry and elderberry shrubs.
Panax quinquefolitis
Araliaceae (ginseng family)
The name ginseng, of Chinese origin, means “essence of earth in the form of a man,” referring to the almost humanlike shape of this plant’s taproot. Ginseng has been a traditional Chinese tonic medicine for more than two thousand years. The genus name Panax comes from the Greek pan (all) and akos (ills)—when ginseng was formally named in 1753, it was considered to be a plant that cured all ills. Ginseng leaves, carried in whorls, are toothed and usually palmate, cut like the fingers on a hand—quinquefolius simply means “with five leaves,” the hallmark of these herbs.
The Panax genus has some six species of herbs with thick roots and simple stems, native to North America and East Asia. American ginseng grows about one to two feet tall and bears small clusters of up to forty whitish flowers in late spring. Bright red berries, each with two or three whitish seeds inside, cluster above the leaves in fall. Our other native species, dwarf ginseng, Ptrifolius, has roots that are more globelike. Both these native perennials are found in rich eastern woodlands, especially mountainous regions from Nova Scotia south to Georgia and west to Indiana, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Minnesota.
Some of the earliest botanical exports from North America were the carrotlike taproots of wild American ginseng, which were shipped to China in the early 1700s. French Jesuit missionaries working among the Iroquois Indians north of Montreal recognized the native species as similar to the highly valued Chinese ginseng.
Traditional uses: Native Americans used both native ginseng species extensively throughout their range. They stewed the whole plant and drank the water to treat colic, indigestion, rheumatism, and other skin and circulatory problems. The flowers and later seeds were chewed to treat breathing difficulties. The roots were the most important part for healing; they were chewed or otherwise used in many medicinal and tonic applications.
Modern uses: Another ginseng species highly valued in health care is the Chinese or Korean Ginseng, P. ginseng, noted for its warming properties. It is yang (hot) in nature and used by people who are yin (cool). The Chinese favor the American ginseng because it is a yin tonic for those who are yang in nature. Tien chi ginseng, P. notoginseng, which grows in southern China, is traditionally used to lower blood pressure and reduce cholesterol levels. Siberian ginseng, Eleutherococcus senticosus, is a close botanical cousin valuable in helping people adapt to stress. It also strengthens the immune system.
Today ginseng is a multibillion-dollar business, and the number of ginseng growers is continually increasing. The ginsengs are considered adaptogenic, helping to normalize body functions by enabling them to utilize other substances more efficiently, and also helping to eliminate toxic substances from the body. Ginseng is considered a whole-body tonic. It tones the organs and enhances their functions, while helping to strengthen all of the body’s systems.
Cautions: Large doses of ginseng are said to raise blood pressure. This tonic should be used with caution and respect. Many people are wolfing down ginseng extracts, teas, roots, and tonics for their many benefits and energy boosts. Some care must be exercised not to overdo a good thing.
Growth needs and propagation: Ginseng has very special growth needs and profits from being pampered. Plants prefer a humus-rich, well-drained, loamy soil and partial shade. Principally a woodland crop, they thrive in dappled shade and with a winter mulch. The seeds need a good four months of cold stratification to germinate, and they require five to seven years to produce mature plants. It is best to start with young plants and cluster them in a cool, rich setting in the medicine wheel garden.
Companions: Ginseng grows beneath elderberry, bayberry hellebore, or angelica. It will also be a companion to hepatica, pennyroyal, bloodroot, strawberry, and bearberry in the garden.
Veratrum viride
Liliaceae (lily family)
These ancient medicinal plants take their genus name, Veratrum, from the Latin word for “hellebore.” The species name, viride, means “green.” A stout perennial plant of moist, rich bottomlands that can grow seven feet tall, American hellebore is also known as white hellebore, Indian poke, itchweed, and devil’s tobacco.
There are about forty-five species of Veratrum native to North America, Europe, and Asia. All favor wet soil. Most are cultivated for specialty gardens and have important medicinal qualities. V californicum is the strikingly attractive corn lily that may grow to six feet tall in regions from Baja California to Washington State and eastward to Colorado, Montana, and New Mexico. It is favored in wildflower gardens, as is V woodii, a more slender, shorter species native to the central United States from Ohio to eastern Oklahoma.
The typically robust, ovate leaves of American hellebore, reaching one foot long, are strongly ribbed, a help in distinguishing this species from any look-alikes. Branched clusters of yellowish-green star-shaped flowers bloom from April through July in many places. The seed pods ripen in late fall, producing many seeds. In the wild, this species grows in swamps and woodland streamsides from Labrador, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario to Minnesota, Georgia, and Tennessee.
Traditional uses: Historically, Indians used these toxic medicinals wisely to treat epilepsy, convulsions, and pneumonia, as well as for pain relief. The Cherokee used hellebore root extracts to treat rheumatism. Some tribes made heart sedatives from Veratrum, and weak teas were used to treat sore throats and chronic rheumatism. The Iroquois used the root to treat congestion. Indian women used decoctions to treat head lice and other vermin; the dried, powdered root served to heal wounds and also as an insecticide. Some accounts say that the eastern Indians used the root as a suicide drug. It was also used to treat toothaches and skin tumors. Shoshone women used the western species as a female contraceptive, and it was said to produce sterility if taken for three weeks.
Modern uses: Extracts (tinctures) from American hellebore are used in homeopathy to treat fever, flu, headache, measles, and pneumonia. Scientists have discovered that the alkaloids and steroids from this plant lower blood pressure and dilate the peripheral blood vessels. Extracts have been used to treat gout. Though highly respected, American hellebore is rarely used by herbalists today because of its toxicity
Cautions: All plant parts, especially the roots, are highly or fatally toxic. Contact can cause mild dermatitis to those with sensitive skin.
Growth needs and propagation: Hellebore prefers rich, wet earth, open to partial shade. It is readily propagated from root division and seed. Handle rootstock carefully (wear gloves), and plant each piece six to eight inches deep in moist, rich earth. Tamp down the area well and mulch with fallen leaves over the winter for fine spring growth in the garden. Seeds need to be spread thinly in moist soil, covered with two inches of fine soil, and kept moist. It may take several years for plants to mature from seeds and bloom.
Companions: Hellebore grows well with Indian turnip, birth-root trillium, cardinal flower, elderberry, sweet flag, goldthread, boneset, and jewelweed.
Hedeoma pulegioides
Labiatae (Lamiaceae) (mint family)
Hedeomas original meaning is obscure. The species name comes from the Middle English meaning “mock pennyroyal;” pulegium comes from the Latin for “flea,” referring to this herb’s traditional use as a flea and bug repellent. Squawbalm, squaw-mint, and pudding-grass are folk names for our diminutive yet powerful native pennyroyal.
Ongnehem was the Huron name for this fragrant, self-sowing annual mint. They put it in their soup of corn and gourds, along with wild onions, to give a wholesome flavor, as was recorded in the 1600s by early explorers in southern Canada. Many other native uses have been noted, primarily for healing and medicinal needs.
Pennyroyal favors dry woodlands from Quebec to Georgia and westward to Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Michigan. Tiny bluish flowers appear in the leaf axils throughout late summer. The small lace-shaped leaves can be toothed or smooth-edged along these slender, branching plants, which rarely stand more than twelve to eighteen inches tall. Pennyroyal often grows in clusters along old wagon trails and footpaths where its highly aromatic qualities can surprise travelers even in the dead of winter.
Traditional uses: Like the European pennyroyal, Mentha pulegium, our native species, H. pulegioides, was greatly respected as an herbal medicine and used with caution, as both could be toxic and abortive. Many tribes made a soothing tea of this native herb to relieve headaches and cramps and used it as a skin wash to treat rashes and irritating itching. The fresh or dried plant (whole) also served as a valuable insect repellent.
Modern uses: Pennyroyal tea has been a reliable cold remedy for centuries. Even a mild tea will promote sweating, relieve fevers, and soothe coughs, flu symptoms, headaches, and indigestion. Herbalists continue to use these teas or tinctures to induce menstruation and for late-onset, crampy menses. Some midwives use pennyroyal in late-term pregnancy to assist in childbirth.
Tickweed is yet another name for this remarkable herb, as it is a valued tick repellent. Many hunters and hikers rub their boots and socks with these plants before setting off through the woods.
Many of us simply place a little pennyroyal in our socks, pockets, and bandanas in order to be “bug-free” while outside.
Cautions: Do not use during pregnancy. Pennyroyal can be very toxic. The essential oil can cause dermatitis for some people, and pennyroyal tea or tincture should only be used with great caution, as it can cause liver damage.
Growth needs and propagation: Pennyroyal likes dry shaded ground in woodland settings. Once it settles into a place it likes, it will self-sow annually.
Companions: Pennyroyal grows well with goldenseal, hepatica, Indian turnip, moccasin flower, and bayberry
Datura stramonium
Solanaceae (nightshade family)
Indian apple, locoweed, thorn apple, and sacred datura are some of the regional names for this striking plant. Two other popular names, jimsonweed and Jamestown weed, go back to Jamestown, Virginia, where early colonists once mistakenly ate some of the greens and became quite silly. The large white trumpetshaped blossoms inspire the idea of trumpeting angels, though considering the plant’s possible effects, some might call its flowers “devil’s trumpets.” The genus name, Datura, comes from the early Hindi and Sanskrit word dhatura, meaning “trumpetlike,” stramonium from the Tatar word turman, “horse medicine.”
The eight species of Datura, all annuals or short-lived perennials, are native to the tropics and warm temperate regions of the Americas. The irregularly toothed alternate leaves, dark green on top and lighter green underneath, are slightly hairy and sticky. Notable for their strong, rank odor, the leaves can grow five to six inches long. The solitary white flowers arise from points where the leaf stems grow from the stalk and may reach a length of six inches, resembling giant morning glories. The single large green, spiny seedpod usually has four chambers filled with small, flattish seeds. The plant can grow up to five feet tall in some locations.
The downy angel’s trumpet, D. inoxia (D. meteloides), which spreads more readily, grows to about three feet tall in waste places across the southern United States and northern Mexico. You see this species especially along roadways and arroyos in the Southwest. The stunning Brugmansia species and other tree daturas are exciting to greenhouse growers and gardeners across America. All had early tribal uses as respected hallucinogens, “plants of the gods.”
A beautiful Zuni legend tells of the divine origin of aneglakya, D. inoxia, their most sacred plant, which is named for a young Zuni boy who lived in earliest times. He and his sister lived in the earth’s interior, yet they could easily go and come from the outer world, where they would walk around observing many things closely. Eventually the Divine Ones (twin sons of the Sun Father) banished the brother and sister from the outer world because they knew too much. Large flowers sprang up from the spot where the two descended into the underworld.
Traditional uses: Angel’s trumpet is a noted folk remedy for cancer, and the leaves were once smoked as an antispasmodic for asthma. South American Indians used these plant extracts as anesthetics for setting bones after injuries and as part of some puberty rites. It was said to be an aphrodisiac for women. Indians in the Southwest used these botanicals in shamanic ceremonies and curing rites. The Yokut Indians called it tanayin and gave it to their adolescents only in the spring to ensure a long life. The Yu-man Indians called it toloache and used it to foretell the future in sacred ceremonies. The Pima Indians sang about this plant in hunting songs. The Huichol Indians created beautiful yarn paintings of this plant. The Navajo Indians used it for visionary diagnosis to effect healing. The eastern Algonquian Indians called it wysoccan and used it in initiatory rites for the huskanawing ceremony, which was a two- or three-week-long puberty ceremony.
Modern uses: This whole plant contains atropine and other alkaloids, used to treat eye diseases; atropine dilates the pupils. Extracts from the plant serve in treating Parkinson’s disease. Angel’s trumpet also yields scopolamine, used in skin patches placed behind the ear to treat vertigo. The plant is widely grown commercially for research as a source for the alkaloidal drug hy-poscamine and other properties.
Cautions: Eating any plant parts causes severe hallucinations and may be fatal. Excessive handling can cause eye irritations and swollen eyelids.
Growth needs and propagation: Despite the fact that many people view angel’s trumpet as a rank weed, gardeners love its attractive blooms and seedpods and increasingly grow it. The blossoms attract hummingbirds and butterflies, as well as the hummingbird moth. Angel’s trumpet will grow in a range of conditions, from poor soil to improved garden soil, and from the desert Southwest to southern New England. These showy plants are easily propagated from seeds, sown indoors in early spring, then planted in the garden in early summer. However, it is easiest to purchase healthy plants from your garden center for setting in the medicine wheel garden.
Companions: Angel’s trumpet grows well with yarrow, prickly pear, sage, and yucca. It will also accompany American angelica in the event that you want to group your “angels” together.
Myrica pennsylvanica
Myricaceae (wax myrtle family)
The genus name Myrica comes from the Greek prefix myri-, meaning “very many,” as in “myriad.” This many-branched shrub puts forth a profusion of small blossoms, which mature into waxy gray berries (actually nutlets). The species name pennsylvanica refers to the region in eastern America where this shrub was first identified. Bayberry flourishes in sandy, sterile soils from eastern coastal regions and inland meadows extending from southern Canada to Virginia and parts of North Carolina.
Stout and aromatic, bayberry grows from three to twelve feet tall, with numerous grayish-white branches, supporting many glossy leaves. The male catkins appear in early spring, generally before the new leaves. Tiny yellowish flower clusters are closely spaced along the downy stems below the outer leaves, blooming from April through July; the hairy, green berrylike fruits, clustered along the midbranches, ripen to a downy, waxy grayish white in late fall and winter. Many people collect the waxy berries to make aromatic candles.
Bayberry leaves, bark, twigs, and fruits have di verse medicinal uses, as do its close relatives candle- berry, M. cerifera (wax myrtle), and sweet gale, M. gale. All have aromatic qualities, especially in their leaves, which have tiny oil glands on the under side. It is sometimes difficult to tell the species apart because the leaves and growth habits are very similar.
Traditional uses: Creek and Seminole Indians used bayberry in some of their “spirit ceremonies” and carried the fragrant leaves and twigs as preventive medicine to ward off disease. Louisiana Choctaws decocted the leaves and twigs in water to lower fevers, as did the Houma; many tribes also used similar fragrant bayberry decoctions to bathe skin irritations and to sprinkle inside their houses to counteract sadness. Besides valuing bayberry leaf decoctions for skin irritations, Lumbees chewed the fresh roots to relieve stomach pains and ulcers. Micmacs and other northern Algonquian peoples used dried, powdered bayberry leaves as snuff to treat headache and nosebleeds.
Astringent, aromatic bayberry leaf tea served as a stimulant and to treat afterbirth pains. Pounded root bark was boiled and made into a poultice to treat toothaches and applied to wounds and bruises to reduce infection and inflammation. Many tribal groups used the fresh aromatic twigs as chew sticks and dentifrices to massage their gums and clean their teeth. Some Great Lakes Indians used the fresh branches as insect repellents, and dried the branches to burn as an insecticidal smudge.
Modern uses: Today bayberry root bark infusions are used to increase circulation, stimulate perspiration, relieve sores, and fight bacterial infections. Bayberry’s astringent qualities help ease intestinal problems and ulcers and, in a gargle, help relieve sore throat. The leaves, fresh or dried, make enjoyable teas and food seasonings. The leaves are also used as insect repellents.
Cautions: The wax and essential oil can be toxic for people with skin sensitivities. Do not use during pregnancy.
Growth needs and propagation: Bayberry will grow well in poor sandy soil and sun to open shade. It will tolerate moist, peaty soil. It flourishes in full sun. The plants can be grown from seed, but best results come from root cuttings and young slips that grow from the mother plant.
Plant new bayberry plants, or their roots or seeds, in the early spring or fall. Young shrubs should be cut back after planting and watering, because the new root systems often have difficulty sustaining all the foliage and branches. Bayberry shrubs require very little attention or maintenance after this early stage. Their rugged, classic form and fragrance make them desirable garden plants, widely cultivated and used in herb gardens.
Companions: Bayberry will grow well with yarrow, plantain, betony, strawberry, and blue flag, among many other herbs. Ferns also grow well beneath or near bayberry shrubs, especially the sensitive and royal ferns. Various mosses also grow well beneath bayberry, especially hair cap moss.
Arctostaphylos uva-urst
Ericaceae (heath family)
Both the common and scientific names for this attractive evergreen shrub make clear that its fruit appeals to bears. The Latin species name, uva-ursi, means “bear’s grape.” By coincidence, the Arcto- in the genus name, indicating northern regions, comes originally from the Greek word for “bear,” referring to the Great Bear constellation in the north. And staphylos means “bunch” or “cluster”—most commonly a cluster of grapes. Both this species and the related alpine bearberry A. alpina, grow across the northern United States, from the coastal regions up into the mountains.
These diminutive shrubs grow on exposed rocky and sandy sites from subarctic regions south to Virginia and down into Mexico, and west to Indiana and northern Illinois. They are a welcome ground cover in sandy areas of the Northeast, especially on Cape Cod, the Shinnecock Reservation in Southampton, New York, and in the New Jersey pine barrens.
Low and trailing, bearberry has small, glossy, oval leaves that are smooth, leathery, and dark green. Long-running branches can reach out for two feet or more. The pale, fragrant blossoms that in most regions appear from May through July produce terminal clusters of white to pale pink bell-shaped flowers, which ripen to glossy red berries during late summer and autumn. Appealing at any season, bearberry makes a stunning evergreen addition to the winter garden.
Traditional uses: Bearberry is a sacred plant to many Native Americans, who know it as an ingredient in kinnikinnik, an Algonquian Indian word for botanical mixtures used for smoking or smudging. Most native kinnikinniks were blends of bearberry, sumac leaves, bark, and berries, and the bark of silky dogwood, Cornus sericea, along with more than thirty other botanicals. These were prepared and combined into seasonal mixtures that varied in composition from region to region. Though often favored over native tobacco, kinnikinniks could also include mixtures of tobacco species. Some tribes, especially Great Lakes and Eastern Algonquians, esteemed bearberry so highly as a fragrant smoking substance that they used it alone as their favored kinnikinnik. Canadian Algonquians called it sagakomi, which means “smoking leaf berry.” A certain number of inner leaves darken and fall off each year, and these can be easily gathered for kinnikinnik, particularly in spring. The leaves and berries were also consumed in therapeutic teas.
The Chippewa carefully cleaned and aged the leaves of bearberry for smoking along with tobacco and red willow as a headache remedy and also as a means to attract game animals. Bearberry was primarily smoked for medicine ceremonies and in tribal meetings in carved catlinite (pipestone) pipes. These distinctive red Calumet pipes have become a symbol of peace making and are often called peace pipes.
Besides praying and offering sacrifices of tobacco and bearberry before they started out, Delaware (Lenape) hunters prepared special medicine lures—good-luck amulets for hunting—that included bearberry. Bear meat and fat, both highly prized, were often preserved with dried bearberries and pressed or pounded into ceremonial pemmican (dried meat and fruit mixture).
Modern uses: Bearberry is organically grown for the herbal health care industry. Both the leaves and berries have been tested by centuries of dependable therapeutic use, assuring this herb an enduring place of contemporary value.
Today bearberry leaf teas and tinctures rank as primary treatments for urinary tract infections, especially cystitis and kidney stones. The leaves are highly astringent and diuretic. Bearberry is also one of the most useful tea herbs for diabetics to treat excessive blood sugar and help the body’s natural insulin production. Bearberry products are usually labeled uva-ursi in health food stores.
Bearberry fruits, cousin of the native blueberry and cranberry, are somewhat mealy and become tastier after being “kissed” by hard frost. Like the leaves, the berries are medicinal and astringent, best used by working them into foods or other botanical formulas. Scientific research shows that extracts of this herb are antibacterial.
Other fine medicinal botanicals in the heath family include the evergreen leatherleaf, Chamaedaphne calyculata; trailing arbutus, Epigaea repens; and wintergreen, Gaultheria procumbens, whose leaves were valued as external astringents, along with the prized Labrador tea, Ledum groenlandicum, long valued as a herbal tea, fumigant, herbal salve ingredient, and insecticide.
Cautions: Do not take during pregnancy. Limit your dosage and use of uva-ursi to just a week to ten days at a time if needed to treat bladder or kidney complaints. Many of us keep a tincture of uva-ursi or the capsules on hand as a safeguard, in hopes it will not be needed.
Growing conditions and propagation: Bearberry and related medicinal plants of the heath family are excellent choices for inclusion in the medicine wheel garden. Cultivated for use in landscape plantings, the thick, weblike growth of this evergreen makes it a valuable plant to check wind and water erosion and hold in ground moisture, especially along slopes. It also creates an excellent low edging texture along paths and walkways.
Bearberry flourishes in loose, sandy, loamy soil with stones and rocks to help anchor its root system. It prefers a slightly acidic soil and prospers beneath evergreen shrubs and laurels where it can receive open shade. It thrives underneath bayberry, black currant, blueberry, and elderberry. The plants grow well in rock garden settings and along ledges, from coastal gardens to alpine settings. Root and stem cuttings root readily and help increase these plantings. When you have a long, trailing branch, place a large stone on the middle of it and cover with a little soil. The part in contact with the soil should root readily and produce another plant.
Bearberry is relatively slow-growing and low-growing, making it vulnerable to disturbance. Give it special attention and protection against predators and erosion until it develops a strong foothold in your garden. It is ruggedly enduring when it likes where it is growing.
Monarda didyma
Labiatae (mint family)
Bee balm is also known as Oswego tea, for the Os-wego Indians of western New York State, who used this plant extensively for beverages, medicines, foods, and smoking mixtures. Indian plume is another popular name. The more official genus name, Monarda, for this showy perennial mint pays respects to Nicholas Monardes, a noted Spanish physician in sixteenth-century Seville. The paired flower stamens perhaps inspired the species name didyma, meaning “in pairs.” The species name for the closely related plant M. fistulosa means “tubular,” calling attention to this family’s characteristic tubular flowers, which lure the hummingbirds and butterflies. Some twelve species of perennial, aromatic Monarda are native to North America.
Native to the Northeast, bee balm produces bright red flowers throughout the summer, and its citrusminty fragrance makes it most desirable. Overharvested from the wild, it is an endangered species in some eastern states. Yet you will see it in almost every wildflower and perennial garden, adding color and elegance.
As its name suggests, bee balm is a plant attractive to bees and a fine source of honey. Leaves of this herb are often used as a caffeine-free substitute for Earl Grey tea, as its fragrance so closely resembles that of orange bergamot, Citrus aurantium. Because of this association, our native herb also bears the common name bergamot.
Traditional uses: Native herbalists used all parts of bee balm plants to treat colic, gas, PMS, insomnia, stomachache, and heart troubles. The Delaware Indians favored bee balm and wild bergamot as perfume and used the dried blossoms and leaves to pack among their most valuable belongings, especially masks and leather clothing. The various Great Lakes tribes used these herbs for treating colds and as burn remedies. They ate the fresh leaves to help clear the mind and settle the stomach. The Meskwaki Indians used the powdered dried leaves as snuff to treat headache.
Pink or lavender bergamot, M. fistulosa, also gives off a spicy, minty odor and in most ways has exactly the same uses as the royal red bergamot. Native people used both species: stems for dentifrices, leaves and blossoms for headache and cold remedies (in strong teas and steamed), and in foods, teas, seasonings, smoking mixtures, insecticides, preservatives, and in the sweat lodge. The bergamots were also used to treat measles by inducing sweating. The slightly more diminutive pink bee balm, or wild bergamot, grows across the country in dry, open soil, ranging as far as Texas and Oklahoma and up to British Columbia, where it is appreciated as a valuable wildflower. Both red and pink bergamot are extensively cultivated as ornamentals and hybridized in an array of vivid colors ranging from bright magenta to white.
Horsemint, M. punctata, is another strongly aromatic member of this striking family. Favoring dry soil from southern New England to Florida and westward to Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas, it puts forth yellowish-purple blooms with lilac bracts throughout summer. Native herbalists used this strong mint to treat cramps, PMS, coughs, colds, fevers, and digestive problems. Horsemint is also a commercial source of thymol, a highly aromatic and antiseptic substance. Today it is chiefly manufactured synthetically. Dotted horsemint, M. punctata, another choice wildflower that was used extensively, is a species of the Plains and Southwest.
Modern uses: Herbalists today recommend bee balm infusions for nausea, sore throats, coughs, colds, and menstrual cramps. The infusions are also a digestive aid and help to relieve gas and colic. Besides its value as an attractive ornamental, bee balm is also readily used in cooking and beverages. The blossoms and leaves are delicious in raw salads and summer soups. The leaves may be cut up and steamed with various vegetables and breads to enhance their aroma and taste.
Growth needs and propagation: Bee balm prefers moist rich soil with humus and will grow from two to three feet tall. The aromatic paired leaves seem to radiate north-south and east-west along the square stem, topped with the vibrant red tubular flowers in a crowded head. One of this plant’s many virtues is that it will readily adapt to either full sun or partial shade. Although bee balm can be propagated from seeds, the colors might not be uniform because of cross-pollination. The best method is to make root divisions from healthy plants in the fall or spring. Dig the new growth into the garden and water it well.
Companions: Bee balm is a good companion for blue flag and bloodroot and will grow well with bearberry and strawberry. It is also known to enhance the growth of tomatoes by hastening pollenation.
Trillium erectum
Liliaceae (lily family)
Bethroot, wakerobin, squawroot, purple trillium, red tril-lium, Indian balm, and stinking Benjamin are just a few of the common names for this striking plant. The common and genus name, from the Swedish trilling, refers to the plant’s most conspicuous feature: its three large leaves. The species name, erectum, reflects its habit of shooting straight up. By any name these lovely wildflowers are welcome harbingers of spring.
Birthroot trillium, which can grow two feet tall, is one of about thirty species of low, perennial, woodland herbs in this genus, primarily native to North America, the Himalayas, and East Asia. Besides their three wavy leaves, these unusual plants have a single deep-red flower with three sepals and three petals that ripens in late summer to a deep-red three-celled berry. The flowers are usually visited and pollinated by flies.
In the wild, birthroot trillium grows in rich woodlands from Ontario and Nova Scotia south to Florida, and west to Michigan. Among its relatives, painted white trillium, Trillium undu- latum, grows almost twenty inches tall, is found in the same areas, and favors the same soil. Dwarf white trillium, 77nivale, has a more southerly range, and generally grows about six inches tall. Toadshade trillium, 77 sessile, with purplish-brown flowers, grows about a foot tall and is found across the southern part of the United States. Another southerner is whippoorwill flower, 77cuneatum, which grows about ten inches tall and has a mottled dark maroon flower.
Traditional uses: Native peoples used each of these trillium species medicinally for menstrual problems, to induce childbirth and aid labor, for menopause, and as a general uterine tonic. The whole plant was poulticed on wounds, inflammations, ulcers, and tumors. Root decoctions were used by the Menomini to reduce eye swellings and irritation and by the Chippewa to treat rheumatism. Canadian tribes chewed the roots to relieve the pain of snakebite. Trillium roots were noted antiseptics and astringents, used for centuries to treat menstrual problems, diarrhea, coughs, asthma, and night sweats. Early physicians used these trusted botanicals to treat difficult breathing and chronic lung disorders, skin irritations, snakebite, and poisonous stings. Trillium teas were once included in formulas to treat diabetes.
Modern uses: The roots of birthroot trillium contain a steroid saponoside, trillarine, used by modern herbalists to treat heavy menstrual and intermenstrual bleeding, helping to reduce the flow. It continues to be a valuable tonic in facilitating childbirth and for treating uterine fibroids. A douche of birth-root is helpful in treating excessive vaginal discharge and yeast infections.
Cautions: Do not take during pregnancy except under professional supervision. The trilliums are on the protected-species list in many states and should not be dug from the wild. As responsible gardeners, we can work to increase these native plant populations by cultivating and propagating them and buying plants from reliable nurseries.
Growth needs and propagation: Trilliums require fertile, moist soil and partial shade to prosper. Following standard practices, root divisions and seeds easily propagate them. It is easiest to purchase healthy young plants from growers or nurseries specializing in cultivating native species.
Companions: This striking trillium accompanies most of the shade-loving plants in the medicine wheel garden, especially Indian turnip, blue cohosh, bloodroot, and ginseng.
Cimicifuga racemosa
Ranunculaceae (buttercup family)
In the insect world, the Cimicidae are a small family of bloodsucking bugs, including bedbugs. Cimicifuga, the Latin genus name for the stately giant black cohosh, suggests putting these bugs to flight. The species name, racemosa—literally, “growing in racemes”—describes flowers opening along a central stalk from the bottom to the top, such as lily-of-the-valley. Cohosh is an old Algonquian word meaning “rough root” or “medicine root,” as the large, distinctive roots of cohosh plants of this and related species were highly esteemed for medicinal needs.
Black snakeroot, squawroot, and bugbane are some of the regional names for this attractive native perennial herb. Like the bug-chasing scientific name, “bugbane” is accurate, as the strong odor of the crushed leaves does indeed repel insects—but perhaps only certain kinds. Every type of insect pollinator seems to buzz to the tall, stately spires of white flowers, rising like delicate candelabra with a host of tiny fragrant white blossoms. These summer-bloom spires, up to eight feet tall, make black cohosh a stunning choice for the garden. Black cohosh grows in rich woodlands from southern Ontario to Georgia and Tennessee, and westward to Arkansas, Missouri, and Wisconsin. Its large, dark rhizome and roots send up tall, graceful deep green stalks that support three-part, three-lobed, sharply toothed featherlike leaflets. The spires of flowers rise high above the leaves from June until September.
Traditional uses: Indian tribes in the Northeast used four different species of cohosh herbs. Along with black, there are also blue, red, and white cohosh perennial plants. Each is toxic, even poisonous, yet native herbalists knew how to use them successfully to relieve numerous health problems. The large, dark roots of black cohosh have served for centuries to treat a wide variety of human needs. This herb was a staple of Native American gynecological treatments. Root decoctions were a primary aid to ease childbirth, relieve menstrual cramps, and treat nervous disorders and rheumatism. Pounded, boiled, and poulticed on snakebite, the roots served as an antiseptic.
Modern uses: Continuing research has verified the anti-inflammatory, sedative, estrogenic, and hypoglycemic properties of black cohosh. Not soluble in water, its roots are best tinctured in alcohol. The plant’s sedative properties make it valuable for treating conditions ranging from high blood pressure and asthma to whooping cough and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). Today this valued herb is highly regarded as a treatment for symptoms of menopause, especially depression, hot flashes, and debility. Black cohosh has long been a treatment for menstrual pain. Contemporary research proves that it is also effective, in combination with St. John’s wort, in relieving hot flashes and other related problems where progesterone production in the female body is too high. Its estrogenic properties can reduce levels of pituitary hormones, thus decreasing the ovaries’ production of progesterone. There are numerous black cohosh preparations on the market.
Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound
Black cohosh roots were an important mainstay in Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, which was first marketed in 1875 and is still used today. This famous “restorative” tonic (and patent medicine) also contained butterfly weed (pleurisy root) and three other botanicals in an 18 percent alcohol solution. Lydia Pinkham’s tonic works to ease menopausal and post-menopausal symptoms. These vital phytomedicines fell out of favor in the United States during the twentieth century’s focus on pharmaceuticals, yet they remain popular abroad. There is intense modern interest in the healing role of phytoestrogens such as those found in black cohosh roots and soy, which do not exert estrogenlike effects in women’s ovarian and breast tissues. Today a variety of black cohosh preparations are available alternatives for women who are unwilling or unable to take hormone replacement therapy.
Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound
12 ounces fenugreek seeds, Trigonella foenum graecum
6 ounces black cohosh roots, Cimicifuga racemosa
6 ounces pleurisy root, Asclepias tuberosa
6 ounces life root, Senecio aureus
6 ounces unicorn root, Aletris farinosa
Several related Asian species of cohosh, such as C. dahurica and C. foetida, are used in Chinese medicine as sheng ma. This medicine works to relieve toxicity, treat asthma, headaches, measles, and to “clear heat.” The rhizomes and roots are dug in late fall for maximum medicinal potency.
Cautions: In large doses black cohosh can be poisonous.
Growth needs and propagation: Black cohosh will thrive in rich, moist, humus-enriched earth that is well drained. It loves both sun and shade. Because it is unusually tall, it provides an appealing background for other garden plants and can take over a large area. This herb can be propagated from seeds or root division. Seeds should be planted outdoors as soon as they are ripe, after the first frost. Divide roots in early fall or spring and dig them in to their new location.
Companions: Besides black cohosh, there are blue, red, and white cohosh species. (See the entry on blue cohosh for more information.) The four cohoshes make interesting companions in a shade garden. Black cohosh also grows well with yarrow, maidenhair fern, American ginger, and ginseng.
Sanguinaria canadensts Papaveraceae (poppy family)
In early spring, the white daisylike flowers of bloodroot often bloom in cheerful colonies, welcoming winter’s retreat. Orange-red juice spurts from freshly broken parts of this perennial plant, accounting for its common name and the genus name, San-guinaria. The species name, canadensis, designates Canada and also the northeastern regions of America, the areas where this plant was first collected. The names of many native herbs go back to astute naturalists, who journeyed from Europe in the 1600s and 1700s to see what they could discover in the “New World.” They often worked for wealthy patrons wishing to collect new specimens.
Also called red puccoon, Indian paint, redroot, or war paint, this native poppy, the sole North American species of its genus, favors wet banks and open woodlands ranging from Quebec south to Florida and west to Texas and Kansas. This is a powerful herb and stunning wildflower. The white blossoms usually appear before the distinctive basal leaves unfurl from March until May. They typically have eight petals spreading two to three inches across the flower, which stands, solitary, above the deeply lobed, veined (seemingly quilted) leaf. A single palm-shaped leaf, pale gray-green underneath and darker green on top, envelops each spring bloom. After flowering, the leaves enlarge. By midsummer the slim green pods stand erect six to ten inches tall with ripening seeds, which are flung about when the ripe pods finally burst open. Thus, you will find dense clusters of bloodroot colonies in undisturbed areas.
Traditional uses: A widely used medicine, this small native poppy was called musquaspenne by the Powhatan Indians in the Virginia Tidewater regions in the early 1600s, and also known to many native peoples as puccoon, one of its popular names today. Captain John Smith noted in 1612, in Jamestown, Virginia, “they use [the bloodroot] for swellings, aches, anointing their joints, painting their heads and garments.” He also added that “they set a woman fresh painted red” to entertain the colonists. Many different tribes used the roots and colored juice as love charms.
I heard the story of an Indian woman who lived on Green Pond Mountain…. She was called Granny Cudjo and was known for her remedies and for her helpfulness to all who lived in the Hollow.
For her work, she collected supplies of bloodroot, butternut bark, snakeroot, and spice woods. And it was said that she knew all the cures…
For generations, early doctors studied with the Indians; during the 1800s, they often called themselves “Indian doctors” because of their increased awareness of healing plants. They learned that the bright orange-red sap from the stout, prominent blood-root rhizomes can be caustic, yet it was particularly well used by diverse native peoples. Medicinal uses of the perennial roots by the Indians spanned the health spectrum, treating skin tumors, internal cancers, eczema, fungal growths, warts, and hemorrhoids. It was also used as an insecticide, as a dye, and as a face paint—even for the lips and teeth and gums. The root juice was once used in cough medicines; in treatments for bronchitis, asthma, lung problems, rheumatism, and fevers; as an emetic; and as a digestive stimulant. Prepared as a dried powder, bloodroot was sniffed to treat nose polyps.
Modern uses: Chemists have identified the isoquinoline alkaloids sanguinarine and berberine, among others, and an extract, sanguinaria, which shows anticancer activities. They are also antiseptic and act as local anesthetics. Development of the commercial product Viadent has brought to the market toothpastes, mouthwashes, and rinses that contain plaque-inhibiting sanguinaria extract. It is fascinating to contemplate what future products will come, in part, from our native plants and indigenous herbalism.
Cautions: Each plant is a complex “chemical factory” and should be respected as such and approached with caution. Bloodroot sap is caustic.
Growth needs and propagation: Easily cultivated in the garden, bloodroot is quite rewarding for its beauty and resilience. This perennial herb does most of its growing in early spring, when it prospers in full sun. Otherwise it can grow in sun or shade. Rich, moist, well-drained soil is best, and a thin mulch covering of leaves is best in winter.
Bloodroot can be readily propagated from seeds and root division in late summer and fall. Wear gloves. Collect the fresh, ripe seeds from the swollen pods and spread and plant immediately before they dry out. Plant them thinly, directly where you want them to grow next year. Cover them with about an inch of humus-enriched compost. Dig up mature roots and break or cut off pieces with a bud and roots attached. Plant these at least an inch deep, covering them with topsoil containing humus, well patted down. Top-dress with well-rotted leaf mulch. Plants from rhizome divisions may flower the following year; plants from seeds may take three years to flower. Wash hands well after planting bloodroot.
Companions: American wild ginger, ginseng, purple trillium, hepatica, foamflower, false Solomon’s seal, eastern columbine, and Dutchman’s breeches are all favorable companions for bloodroot.
Vaccinium angustifolium
Ericaceae (heath family)
The genus Vaccinium includes blueberries, cranberries, huckleberries, and bilberries—in all, perhaps 150 species of deciduous and evergreen shrubs or vines native to the Northern Hemisphere. Vaccinium, like “vaccine,” seems to derive from the Latin word for “cow,” but the reason for its choice remains unclear. Many are grown for their prized edible fruits and medicinal leaves. The species name, angustifolium, means “narrow-leaved.” Small oval or narrow leaves are a notable feature of blueberries and other members of the genus and the larger heath family.
The several species of multistemmed blueberry shrubs often have green or red twigs and terminal clusters of small, pendulous, urn-shaped white flowers during May and June. In late summer, the flowers ripen into many-seeded blue berries. The high-bush blueberry, V. corymbosum, the velvet-leaf blueberry, V. myrtilloides, and the low-bush blueberry, V. angustifolium, are most commonly found in eastern woodlands, from Nova Scotia south to Georgia and Alabama and west to Wisconsin. They can grow successfully in conditions ranging from swamps to dry upland woods. All three have been cultivated for garden enjoyment, and hybrids from these species are some of the best-bearing, winter-hardy blueberry shrubs offered for gardeners across the country.
Traditional uses:Uwaddhioni—“plenty of berries”—is the Cayuga term for late summer when ripe berries abound, especially the delicious blueberries. The Oneida called blueberries and huckleberries “the early berries,” uhiddji niyuhundagwaha, and picked them in great numbers, collecting them in berry baskets. To help preserve the tart wild fruits, they lined their wood-splint baskets and bark buckets with large basswood leaves or fern fronds. Tribal people in the Northeast also used aromatic sweet-fern leaves and hay-scented fern fronds for this purpose. In years of abundance, berries were dried, and even smoked, to preserve them. Some were mashed into berry cakes and dried on large basswood and sycamore leaves in the sun or beside the fire, to be rehydrated later in soups, stews, or hot maple syrup water.
Native people drew benefits from blueberry shrubs well beyond the season of ripe fruits, collecting the small mature blueberry leaves before they reddened and fell from their shrubs in autumn. Blueberry leaf teas are mineral-rich astringents that were used to wash the skin and hair. They were also drunk to prevent the formation of bladder or kidney stones. Many tribes considered the blueberry leaf teas to be “blood purifiers” because of the tonic effect on the general digestive system. Algonquian Indians used blueberry leaves in teas to treat colic and stomach cramps and painful menstruation, as well as to aid uterine contractions during childbirth. Dried leaves were smudged and burned in kin-nikinnik mixtures (and alone), and the smoke inhaled to clear congestion and treat nosebleed.
Modern uses: Blueberry leaf tea continues in use as a diabetes treatment, esteemed by many native herbalists, and also to treat bladder and kidney complaints. Its diuretic and astringent benefits make it a valuable choice for relieving urinary tract infections. This tea is also a helpful gargle to soothe swollen glands, sore throats, or mouth sores, and strong blueberry leaf teas (decoctions) are valued as antiseptic skin washes and to treat everything from poison ivy rashes to muscle cramps and insect and spider bites.
Along with huckleberries and bilberries, blueberries contain valuable compounds called anthocyanosides and arbutin. The first helps to treat, and even prevent, cataracts as well as aiding general eyesight; and the second helps to treat yeast infections. Some studies show that eating these berries in moderation helps to protect the stomach against ulcers by strengthening the stomach lining. Blueberries’ compound oligomeric procyanidins (OPCs) have anti-inflammatory benefits that may relieve some symptoms of multiple sclerosis. The dried fruits have concentrations of their inherent tannins and pectin, making them valuable treatments for diarrhea.
Blueberries are high in vitamin C and are favored as healing antioxidants.
Growth needs and propagation: Most blueberry shrubs thrive in sandy or peaty, acidic soils, though some will do well in moist rich earth. As acid-loving perennials, most varieties will perform best if fed a soil acidifier. They prefer full sun or open shade for healthiest growth.
It is best to have at least two or three blueberry shrubs in the medicine wheel garden to assure good cross-pollination for maximum fruits. Plant them two or three feet apart, depending upon size and species, and set them in a small triangle. Excellent new hybrid varieties that bloom and bear fruits early to late in the season are available, as well as fine dwarf low-bush (about eight inches tall) and stunning high-bush varieties (about three to four feet tall).
Velvetleaf blueberry, V. myrtilloides, makes a colorful show in the garden in autumn, when its oval, velvety leaves, which can grow two inches long, turn vibrant red. This low shrub favors moist, acid soil and will grow up to three feet tall and develop a dense root system. If allowed to, it can generate a colony of numerous additional shrubs.
Caulophyllum thalictroides
Ranunculaceae (buttercup family)
Blue cohosh, a much less toxic plant than red or white cohosh, favors moist, rich woodlands from New Brunswick to Manitoba and southward to Alabama and Arkansas. It can grow two to three feet tall. A bluish stem bearing a single bluish-green, fine-cut leaf emerges in spring and divides into three small, oval, three-lobed, notched leaflets. Large blue berrylike seeds follow spires of clustered tiny greenish-yellow flowers in spring to late summer. Native people sometimes roasted these berries to make a coffeelike beverage, while the large powerful rhizomes and roots were and are sought in early spring and late fall for specific herbal medicines.
Traditional uses: The Omaha-Ponca called blue cohosh zhu-nakada-tanga-maka, meaning “great fever medicine,” as they considered it the most effective treatment for fever. They made a strong decoction of the root to sip for colds, flu, and other illnesses accompanied by high fever. The thick, knotty rhizome and roots were dug in late fall after a killing frost, then dried and ground into a fine powder. The root tea also served to treat profuse menstruation, abdominal cramps, and urinary tract infections.
Today, blue cohosh is also called blue ginseng, squaw-root, and papoose root— names that indicate its strengthening properties as a parturient (an aid in childbirth), especially during the last two weeks of pregnancy.
Modern uses: Contemporary herbalists use blue cohosh root teas and tinctures to treat rheumatism and bronchitis. Tests showing anti-spasmodic properties in the roots confirm its beneficial effect. Root glycosides (steroidal saponins) are also responsible for the uterine-stimulant activity—this is the reason why this herb should be taken only during labor or the last two weeks of pregnancy, never earlier. Indeed, current medical uses for blue cohosh are remarkably similar to Native American traditional uses. Taken as a contraceptive and to treat genitourinary conditions, its key actions are diuretic, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, to promote menstrual flow, and as a uterine tonic and antirheumatic.
Cautions: This plant should be avoided during the first thirty-eight weeks of pregnancy because it can cause abortion. The plant can be a skin irritant to those with sensitive skin. The root powder can be caustic and irritating to the mucous membranes.
Growth needs and propagation: Blue cohosh prefers rich, moist, well-drained soil improved with humus. It will grow well in shade and dappled shade. New plants can be easily started from seed by planting the seeds as they become fully ripe, in the late summer. Plant them outdoors or layered in cold propagation trays (propagation trays kept in a refrigerator or cold cellar). Most take a year to germinate. Cultivation is easiest from root division. Divide healthy rhizomes in the fall or early spring, planting each new division about six inches deep in rich, moist earth and firming the earth well over them. New plants should appear and bloom the following year.
Companions: Blue cohosh provides good company for elderberry, bayberry, bearberry maidenhair fern, and hellebore. This perennial will mature to make handsome colonies with attractive foliage, spring blooms, and pale-blue summer berries. It thrives in various shade garden settings.
Iris versicolor
Iridaceae (iris family)
These tall, beautiful irises are also known as flags because of their long, narrow leaves—like the banners carried by medieval knights. Their intricate multicolored blossoms explain the name iris: in Greek mythology, Iris was the goddess of the rainbow and served as a messenger to the gods. Versicolor means “variously colored.” The mature long leaves of this plant were collected and dried to be woven into baskets and rush seats and backs for chairs. The iris blossom, sometimes called fleur-de-lis, served as the model for the emblem of French royalty.
What an incredible repertoire of beauty and meaning come together in our native flags! In many northeastern towns and villages there is a Flag Swamp Road, indicating an old region where they grew.
The iris family embraces about fifteen hundred species in almost sixty genera, distributed in temperate and tropical regions, and more than two hundred species native to northern temperate zones. Many gardeners grow colorful iris varieties. These were my grandmother’s favorite flowers in Tennessee.
Blue flag is also called water flag, poison flag, and liver lily. In Middle English, the word flagge referred to a rush or reed, and this attractive native wildflower flourishes in marshes and wet meadows as well as in drier meadows. It grows from Labrador to Manitoba; James Bay, Ontario, south to Virginia; and west through Ohio to Wisconsin and Minnesota. The coastal slender blue flag, Iris prismatica, has very narrow, grasslike leaves only a quarter inch wide. A smaller southern blue flag, I. virginica, which rarely reaches two feet tall, grows from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas in wetlands. These irises can grow in ever-enlarging, cosmopolitan groups. White varieties also occur near blue colonies.
Close relatives are the more diminutive blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium angustifolium and S. montanum. These ancient American Indian medicinals are widespread across North America. The tall, rugged yellow flag, I. pseudacorus, introduced from Europe, escaped cultivation and also spread widely. It, too, has native medicinal uses.
The tall, swordlike grayish-green leaves of blue flags arise from sturdy, creeping rootstocks. From May to July, these irises flaunt their violet to pale blue blossoms with attractive yellow, green, or white veins and markings on the large recurved petals (sepals). The flowers can be two to four inches wide, sometimes branched, atop sturdy stalks. In late summer the flowers ripen into erect three-lobed green capsules filled with dark seeds. These woody iris pods mature to dark brown, with shiny interior chambers (exposed when they open), and stand tall through winter snowstorms to mark the thick rhizomes underground. The woody pods are considered “climax flowers,” or final flowers, and are often gathered for winter bouquets.
Traditional uses: Blue flag has a long history of healing uses among the many Native American tribes throughout its range. The rhizomes, though extremely poisonous, were valued root medicines among Eastern Woodland Indians and many others. They were dried and used in small amounts both topically or internally, very diluted, and were included in compounds and formulas to treat a variety of disorders from indigestion to rheumatism.
Some tribes planted blue flag near their dwellings and villages among other important medicinals. For example, William Bar-tram (1791) recorded the cultivation of “little plantations” of blue flag near the Creek Indian town of Attasse. The Delaware made a root medicine from blue flag for treating rheumatism, scrofula (glandular, lymphatic, and respiratory infections), and liver and kidney disorders. The Mohegans pulverized the root for an external pain-relief poultice, bound by mixing it with flour. The Seneca used the rhizomes for a physic, to treat problems of menses, and to help induce labor, and Creek Indians used them in decoctions taken as strong cathartics during times of fasting and grieving.
Modern uses: Today, herbalists recommend blue flag as a blood purifier and to treat skin problems. The dried rhizome, tinctured for use in dilute formulas, also aids digestion. Decoctions of the rhizome are worked into healing salves and creams for skin care. In small doses, blue flag works to detoxify the body by increasing urination and bile production. It acts with a mild laxative effect as well as the internal cleansing action, helping to treat chronic skin diseases such as acne and eczema. It especially treats gallbladder problems and constipation, which contribute to these skin conditions. Blue flag in small doses will relieve nausea and vomiting, but in large doses it causes these reactions. Many cautions are attached to the use of this powerful healing herb.
Cautions: Blue flag is toxic and should not be used for self-medication. People with skin sensitivities may develop a rash after touching the rootstocks, so wear gloves and wash your hands immediately after handling the rhizomes. Do not take during pregnancy.
Growth needs and propagation: The foliage and blooms of blue flag are very desirable in the medicine wheel garden, especially in the blue section. The winter forms, too, are quite attractive and tantalize the songbirds that come for the seeds. After the plants have finished flowering in late summer, cut the leaves back to about four to eight inches and divide the rhizomes with a sharp knife or shovel. Plant each piece of rhizome, with attached leaf clump, horizontally just beneath the soil and pat it down well. The healthiest divisions will flower the next year.
Seeds can easily be collected from the dried, mature pods as soon as they split open. Sow the seeds immediately about one-third of an inch deep in the desired location outdoors where they can overwinter and germinate in the spring. It will take about three years for plants to mature and flower from seeds. Once established, blue flag will spread and self-seed naturally until you get a large colony.
Companions: Blue flag grows well in most locations and keeps good company with cardinal flower and jack-in-the-pulpit and yarrow, as they seem to strengthen one another. This combination gives you a flowery red, white, and blue.
Eupatorium perfoliatum
Asteraceae (sunflower or aster family)
Infusions of this native perennial herb were widely used in past centuries to treat influenza (flu), then known as “breakbone fever” because of its debilitating effects—hence the common name bone-set. White settlers on the continent learned of its uses very early from Native Americans.
Mithridates Eupator (134–63 B.C.), Greek king of Pontus, in spired the genus name; he was the first person noted to have used a plant of this genus to treat liver complaints. Our plants con tinue to bring ancient history to life. The species name, perfoliatum, meaning “through the leaf,” reflects an interesting feature of this species: clasping leaves joined around the plant stem, which appears to pierce right through them.
Boneset is an erect, attractive herb growing from one to five feet tall. The unique opposite leaves are long, slender, spear-shaped blades that radiate north-south and east-west up the fuzzy stems. Atop the main stem, dense, flat-topped clusters of small white flowers bloom from July until October in many regions. This native of North America grows from Quebec to Manitoba, south to Florida and Texas, and west into Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. Other North American natives in this family of five hundred or more species of perennial herbs include white snakeroot, Eupatorium rugosum, and sweet joe-pye weed, E. purpureum, along with joe-pye weed or smoke weed, E. maculatum. Each of these species is fairly common in the eastern United States and adapts well to the garden. Many other species are native to tropical America.
Traditional uses: Boneset is also known as wild sage, Indian sage, feverwort, thoroughwort, and agueweed. Indians must have had many different names for it, too, as various tribes used it to treat numerous common problems. They used the entire plant as a tonic and stimulant, and the leaves and blossoms as emetics and to kill parasites.
A strong boneset tea served the Meskwaki Indians as a snakebite cure; the Seneca and Mohegans used it as a tonic. For many years, physicians used boneset tea as a substitute for quinine to treat fever. Zuni Indians in New Mexico use the related species E. occidentale to treat rheumatism and arthritis as well as other joint pains. Many American Indian tribes used boneset infusions to treat cold, flu, fever, rheumatism, and arthritic problems.
Modern uses: Boneset shows valuable immune system stimulation. A hot infusion of boneset will relieve symptoms of the common cold and helps to reduce a fever. Boneset tea has been used as a tonic and laxative; it also relieves rheumatism, as well as some skin conditions. Boneset’s upper plant parts, principally blossoms, stems, and leaves, are the choice botanicals used medicinally. A bitter drink, boneset has antibiotic properties and is being explored for anticancer activities.
Cautions: Boneset can be toxic if taken in excessive doses. It can be emetic and laxative in large doses and could be harmful to the liver.
Growth needs and propagation: Boneset prefers moist, rich earth and open sun to partial shade. It will accommodate well to most garden situations. It is best propagated by cuttings and root divisions in late summer and fall. These can be started in a greenhouse or indoors and then moved outside into the garden. Many species in this family have been cultivated for show gardens, especially the lovely ageratums and stevia, the Mexican sweet herb.
Companions: Boneset grows well with cardinal flower, maidenhair fern, sweet flag, goldthread, hepatica, and Indian turnip. It will also accompany elderberry, hellebore, and angelica in the medicine wheel garden.
Butterfly Weed Asclepias tuberose
Asclepiadaceae (milkweed family)
Both the family and genus of this stunning herb are named for the Greek god of medicine, Asklepios. The species name, tuberosa, means “full of swellings or knobs” and describes the enlarged root system characteristic of this plant. The milkweed family is noted for both toxic and healing properties. The distinguishing feature of many members of this family is a milky sap that oozes out when plant parts are broken.
Each of the two hundred or so species of perennial herbs in this family, mostly native to North America and Africa, draws most butterflies and some hummingbirds to their blossoms, as well as many other insect pollinators. Some very distinctive species are found throughout the Americas, and many of these make beautiful additions to the medicine wheel garden.
Also known as pleurisy root, Choctaw root, Indian paintbrush, and orange swallowwort, butterfly weed will grow up to three feet tall from its stout, woody root-stock. This herb prospers in dry, sandy earth and grows naturally from southern Ontario through New England south to Florida and west to Texas, Arizona, and Colorado. Its lance-shaped leaves crowd along a slightly hairy stalk. Clusters of showy, bright yellow-orange flowers bloom from May through September in most of these areas. The vibrant flowers draw many butterflies for the nectar.
Common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, has an equally broad range and grows up to six feet tall. The dense cluster of white to pale pink flowers emits a heavenly fragrance. All plant parts are poisonous except for the very young spears, blossoms, and very young pods. The toxic substances are cardiotonic glycosides. The monarch butterfly, which depends completely on the milkweeds for food, is protected by these toxins because they render it inedible by predators. Native Americans used these properties to treat heart problems and numerous other health needs.
Horsetail milkweed, A. verticillata, grows to almost three feet tall through the central and eastern United States, and the southern antelope milkweed, A. viridifolia, grows up to five feet tall from Massachusetts to Georgia and west to Arizona and New Mexico. The striking blossoms of these plants, pale green to whitish gold, make them most appealing for cultivation in the medicine wheel garden.
Traditional uses: Butterfly weed was one of the most important Menomini medicines. They used the roots as wound dressings and for many other remedies, often mixing the roots with other botanicals in particular formulas. Penobscot Indians used them as cold medicines and as a dressing for sores. The Omaha Indians used this plant as one of their sacred medicines in the Shell Society. Special ceremonies accompanied the digging, consecration, and preparation of the roots over a four-day period. Many tribes gathered and steamed the blossoms to eat for food and medicines. This was a special plant for dreaming and magic.
Modern uses: Herbalists rarely use butterfly weed today because of its highly toxic properties. It is on the endangered species list in many states and is being widely propagated as a showy ornamental.
Cautions: Poisonous if taken in large doses.
Growth needs and propagation: Butterfly weed grows well in most soils and propagates readily from seed and root divisions. Follow traditional methods for each.
Companions: Chili peppers, blue flag, bayberry, and evening primrose are good companions for butterfly weed.
Lobelia cardinalis
Campanulaceae (bellflower family), subfamily Lobeliaceae (lobelias)
With its spires of brilliant crimson tubular flowers waving in the breeze, like the flash of a male cardinal in flight, the cardinal flower is aptly named. Hummingbirds and swallowtail butterflies frequently visit these vivid flowers, the most striking blooms of our native lobelias. The name lobelia honors a Flemish physician and herbalist, Mathieu de Lobel (1538–1616). The Latin cardinalis, meaning “principal,” was first extended to describe the principal dignitaries of the Catholic Church and then the distinctive red color that cardinals wear. Applying the same word to a brilliant red bird and flower was only another short step.
Indian red is another common name for this striking perennial, which can grow three feet tall. These plants, with handsome dark green foliage beneath their regal bloom spires, are happy in moist soil, especially around ponds and marshes, yet the species adapts well to normal garden conditions. Cardinal flower is found growing in the wild from New Brunswick south to Florida and East Texas, and west as far as California.
The genus Lobelia includes about 375 species native to warm, temperate, and tropical regions. Most are native perennials and annuals, extensively cultivated, with distinctive flowers attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds seeking nectar. Several species are noted drug plants today, and Native Americans probably used most of the lobelias throughout their range for healing purposes.
Traditional uses: Cherokee and Iroquois Indians used strong teas made from cardinal flower roots to treat syphilis, typhoid fever, and stomach problems. Many tribal medicine people also used leaf teas from this herb as nerve tonics and to treat cramps. The leaves and blossoms were dried for use in medicinal smoking mixtures to stimulate the heart. The herb was also extensively included in “love medicines” and “love potions” employed by many different tribes. The intense red was held sacred and symbolic of the heart and love.
Indians smoked the dried leaves of the related Indian tobacco, L. inflata, to treat asthma, bronchitis, and sore throat and to enhance the actions of other herbs. This finely hairy native annual blooms with white to pale blue flowers in spires that can reach six to eight inches high and ripen into small, inflated seedpods after summer. Self-sowing, it is widespread across eastern fields and open woods from Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan and south to Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
Great lobelia, or blue cardinal flower, L. siphilitica, is another related herb long used by Indians for medicinal purposes. Centuries ago, they made herbal root decoctions (strong teas) to treat syphilis, while leaf teas served to treat colds, headaches, and stomach problems. Leaves were poulticed on sores and used as wound dressings and smoked to treat respiratory ailments. The slim, attractive perennial herb, which can top five feet tall, puts forth blue-lavender flowers tightly clustered along the bloom spire. It favors stream banks and open meadows from Maine to North Carolina and westward into Mississippi, Arkansas, and Minnesota.
As with other lobelia relatives, the leaves, stems, and blossoms of pale-spike lobelia, L. spicata, were dried and smoked to treat respiratory and circulatory problems. Indians also used the whole plant to make medicinal skin washes to treat sores and wounds, and it was drunk as an emetic. This perennial herb with pale blue to whitish flowers grows to almost four feet tall in fields and meadows throughout the region from New Brunswick to Minnesota and southeast to Georgia. Lobelias’ pale blue flowers were believed to have magical properties, such as the ability to ward off ghosts.
Modern uses: Contemporary herbalists continue to use lobelias in many of the traditional Native American applications. Upper parts of Indian tobacco, L. inflata, the primary medicinal herb, are used in tinctures, tablets, and infusions. It yields several substances similar to nicotine, which has led herbalists to use lobelia to help patients give up smoking. Lobeline, one of fourteen alkaloids present in L. inflata, goes into commercial antismoking lozenges, chewing gums, and patches. Lobelia is also valued as a respiratory treatment, especially for bronchial asthma and chronic bronchitis. It relaxes the muscles of the smaller bronchial tubes, opening the airways and stimulating breathing. Combined with cayenne pepper, lobelia has been used as a chest and sinus rub.
Cautions: Lobelias are toxic and can act as strong emetics. Do not use them to self-medicate.
Growth needs and propagation: Cardinal flower thrives in rich, moist soils and full to partial sun. It prefers slightly acidic to neutral soil and should be mulched in winter, especially in northern areas. The other species of lobelia will tolerate mixed soil types and dry conditions, and they like full sun. They are remarkably enduring and rugged. All, cardinal flower included, are hardy plants that flower from midsummer into early fall, when they set seeds. Sow the tiny seeds in humus-rich soil and cover them with a thin layer of mulch. They need to overwinter outdoors for maximum hardiness. Carefully remove the mulch in spring. Plants from seed will usually flower in the second year.
Easy propagation by stem layering and root division is also possible, the latter best done in early spring. Set the roots almost a foot apart with the new buds just at the soil surface. Keep the soil moist. Stem layering is easiest to accomplish in midsummer. Carefully bend the stem over until it touches the ground. Stake it, cover a portion of the upper stem with a half inch of soil, and keep this moist. New shoots will form and emerge; the stem can be cut between the new shoots in the fall.
Companions: Great companion plants are blue flag and sweet flag as well as elderberry shrubs. Angelica and heal-all also go well with lobelias in the garden.
Capsicum frutescens
Solanaceae (nightshade family)
Called cayenne and Tabasco pepper, this hot pepper plant is the kissing cousin of the sweet, or bell, peppers, Capsicum an-nuum. The genus name comes from Latin capsa, meaning “box,” for the podlike fruits. The species name, also from Latin, means “bearing fruit.” Yielding some of the world’s best-known spices, Capsicum embraces about twenty species, all native to tropical America.
The chili originated more than three thousand years ago, yet its exact birthplace is still a mystery. Prehistoric people greatly predating these cultures first began cultivating wild chili peppers in regions of today’s Mexico and Central America. The Spanish “discovery” of these amazing New World plants led to revolutionizing foods and medicines worldwide. Now more chilis are produced and eaten than any other seasoning in the world.
Long before the Spanish arrived, Mayan and Aztec Indians and their ancestors were growing diverse peppers for myriad uses, many noted in pictures and glyphs of Mayan codices. After Diego Alvarez Chanca, a physician accompanying Columbus’s second voyage in 1494, first described these spice-laden fruits for Europeans, they were carried on Spanish and Portuguese voyages of trade and exploration and became essential plants from Europe and Africa to eastern Asia. Chili peppers are grown in warm climates around the world and the majority of the world’s capsaicin now comes from Japan and India.
The simple leaves of these multi-branched, shrubby perennial (and annual) herbs are alternate, oval, and smooth. The simple flowers, which appear in the forked notches of the plants’ stems, are usually white or greenish-white, and some are tinged with violet. The flowers can appear as solitary blooms or in groups of two or three. Behind the pollinated flowers, the ovary swells into a shiny green, podlike, many-seeded berry, which ripens to become red, orange, yellow, or purple. This fruit varies in size, shape, and pungency with each different species and variety. Chili pepper plants can grow up to two or three feet tall, though many are much smaller. Some are grown as ornamentals with purple blossoms and purple chili pods.
Traditional uses: Early South and Central American cultures used chilis medicinally to treat toothaches, and to cure colic and colds (and as a preventative). Chilis, like cocoa beans, were also used as currency among many southern tribes. The Aztec mixed chili peppers with wild honey, spirulina (a blue-green alga), and cornmeal to make ceremonial foods. Throughout the desert Southwest, these chilis were favored native foods and medicines. Many tribes used chili peppers to stimulate circulation and ease headaches, reduce inflammation from swollen joints, and in countless ceremonial items.
Modern uses: Modern herbalists and physicians continue to recognize the virtues of chili peppers and their principal ingredient, capsaicin (also capsicine). The peppery, reddish-brown liquid obtained from the genus Capsicum is used in topical preparations for relief from pain (as an irritant, it blocks the transmission of other pain signals). It is also widely used in flavoring vinegars, oil, and other foods. Cayenne is so popular in Mexico, where it originated, that it even serves to flavor ice cream!
A pinch of ground cayenne in water is an excellent gargle for sore throats, and drinking this mixture can relieve both diarrhea and headaches. Taken internally, cayenne and chili pepper can help relieve gas, stimulate digestion, and relieve/prevent some stomach and intestinal infections. They also stimulate the body’s metabolism. Extracts of these peppers applied to the skin provide mild pain relief and improve the blood flow to the affected parts. This virtue makes capsaicin a key ingredient in many liniments and creams. Red-hot chili peppers and cayenne are inhospitable environments for bacteria, so their extracts have been used as antibacterial agents with great success.
Cautions: When handling these plants, take care not to rub your eyes or any sensitive areas of your body, as you could experience mild to caustic irritations. Be especially careful if you have any open cuts on your hands.
Growth needs and propagation: Chili peppers grow well in full sun and enriched soil. They are grown easily from seed and are usually treated as annuals in most regions. You can also purchase healthy young plants from a nearby nursery.
Companions: Chili peppers are good company for many of the sun-loving plants in the medicine wheel garden. Chilis grow well alongside yarrow, arnica, butterfly weed, and angel’s trumpet.
Echinacea angustifolia
Compositae (daisy family)
The Greek word echinos described two spiny animals, the hedgehog and the sea urchin. The genus name, echinacea, retains the “spiny” idea of this word, which early naturalists thought accurately described the plant’s ripe, rounded spiny seed head. The species name angustifolia simply means “narrow-leaved.”
There are four species in the genus Echinacea of large, coarse, rough-hairy perennial herbs native to North America. Now rarely found in the wild, the easternmost plant in this group, E. tennesseeiensis, is on the endangered-species list because of overharvesting. The three remaining species are fairly widespread in the wild and even more so among perennial gardeners and herbalists.
Prairie coneflower or narrow-leaved coneflower, E. angustifolia, is a deep-taprooted wildflower found across the prairies from Manitoba and Saskatchewan south to Oklahoma and Texas. Pale to deep magenta-purple daisylike flowers with narrow rays surround a prominent cone-shaped disk, rising above stiff, hairy, lance-shaped leaves. At maturity this plant can reach two feet in height. Purple coneflower, E. purpurea, shares many of these same attributes, and when mature can stand two to three feet tall, blooming throughout the summer. It grows in the wild across the middle prairie regions from Michigan south to Oklahoma and Texas. These two species are cultivated broadly as showy wild-flowers in many states and farmed to supply the growing health care industry. Very similar to these species, the pale purple coneflower, E. pallida, often hybridizes with the narrow-leaved cone-flower, and has much the same uses medicinally. Found across the midprairie regions from Wisconsin and Minnesota to Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma, this stout perennial can reach three feet tall with maturity and, like the other species, is widely cultivated. Each species also has hybrid white flower varieties.
Traditional uses: Indians used all plant parts of narrow-leaved coneflower for foods and medicines, and it was and is one of their most often used wild herbs for treating colds, flu, cancers, toothache, spider bites, and snakebite. They also used the chewed roots of purple coneflower to treat chronic inflammations and infections. Root and leaf teas and decoctions have long proven popular and reliable treatments for weakened immune systems.
Modern uses: Following traditional practices, many of us take some form of echinacea preparations periodically to boost or strengthen our immune system. Modern herbalists and health care practitioners consider echinacea the most important immune stimulant in Western herbal medicine. It helps fight infections of all kinds, particularly colds, flu, respiratory problems, and skin disorders. Especially valuable for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and viral illnesses, it is also a useful remedy for asthma and other types of allergies. Scientific research confirms the remarkable health benefits of these plants. More than two hundred pharmaceutical preparations are made from them in Germany, including extracts, salves, tinctures, and pills.
Cautions: Do not take this herb if you suffer with MS (multiple sclerosis) or other autoimmune disorders. Do not take it regularly in any case; use echinacea supplements only when the need arises, or your immune system might grow dependent upon this additional assistance.
Growth needs and propagation: The purple and narrow-leaved coneflower species are perhaps the most distinctive and recognizable native healing herbs. These rugged perennials like most soil types and full sun. They will increase by division and by seeds sown in the garden in late summer and fall. Start with healthy plants purchased from a nursery or grower who is cultivating native wildflowers.
Companions: Echinacea grows well with other sun-loving herbs in the medicine wheel garden, especially heal-all, chili peppers, evening primrose, and yarrow.
Sambucus Canadensis
Caprifoliaceae (honeysuckle family)
American elderberry, sweet elderberry, and elder are some common names for this native deciduous shrub. The genus name may come from the Greek word sambuke, for a musical instrument that was once made of elder wood. For centuries elderberry has been used to heal the body, mind, and spirit through its gifts of medicines and charms. The species name, canadensis, denotes Canada or the Northeast, where this plant was first identified.
Sambucus embraces about twenty species of shrubs and small trees with pithy stems that grow mainly in temperate and subtropical regions. In North America there are perhaps four species, which native populations used extensively for foods and medicines.
Elderberry grows from three to twelve feet tall in moist, rich soil and ranges from Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to Texas, and north to Manitoba. It has opposite toothed, featherlike leaves and creamy white spring flowers that form broad wheel-like, flat-topped clusters. The flowers ripen in late summer to clusters of juicy blue-black berries.
The American red elderberry, S. pubens, grows in the East, and the Pacific coast red elderberry, S. callicarpa, is found in the West along with the larger blue elderberry, S. caerulea, which can grow to twenty feet tall. All are attractive ornamentals, frequently cultivated in mass plantings for their spring blossoms and autumn fruits. All were also important American Indian medicinals. The red-berried elders are more toxic than the blue elderberry.
Traditional uses: Indians ate the elderberries ripe and dried, and the spring blossoms were used in foods and steeped into restorative teas and salves. Teas made from the inner bark served as a strong laxative, emetic, headache remedy, and diuretic; on the skin it was a valuable treatment for eczema, swellings, and skin eruptions. The Onondaga used the inner bark as an emetic to counter poisoning; it was also used to treat toothaches. The inner bark was also pounded and poulticed on cuts, burns, and sores, and on newborns’ navels, as it provided pain relief and reduced swelling. The Illinois and Miami Indians used strong root-bark decoctions to treat people with debilities and general weakness. Elderberry syrup was a treatment for coughs, colds, and flu.
Indians made hunting whistles and courting flutes from the dense, creamy white wood; the stems have a fibrous pith that can be easily hollowed out. Some tribes carved spiles for tapping sugar maple trees from elderberry, as well as from sumac wood. Indian boys fashioned blowguns from elderberry stems.
As they moved to the New World, our European ancestors brought the European elder, S. nigra, because of its vital importance in their traditional lifeways. Many believed that the elderberry was imbued with special spirits and powers. Planting an elderberry shrub touching the house was considered a deterrent to witches and ghosts, preventing them from appearing or harming the inhabitants. Our Scandinavian forebears thought that tying a cross of elderberry sticks to the head of the bed would prevent bad dreams and nightmares. They used the fresh and dried leaves in the garden around vegetables to keep away mice and insects and prevent fungal damage to their garden crops, and they made wines and vinegars from the ripe fruits and blossoms and salves from the inner bark and flowers.
Modern uses: Modern herbalists continue to recommend the virtues of elderberry. The spring flowers and ripe berries are used as foods, flavorings, wines, tisanes (of blossoms), and teas (of leaves). They are worked into a variety of syrups, infusions, tinctures, and teas to treat coughs, colds, arthritis, congestion, and allergies. People take elderberry syrup and capsules to strengthen the eyes.
Cautions: The bark, roots, leaves, and unripe fruits of elderberry are toxic. Only the blossoms and ripe berries are edible.
Growth needs and propagation: Elderberry thrives in rich, moist soil with good mulch. It is easily cultivated from seed, cuttings, and some sucker growth, which can be cut off and rooted. For success, follow traditional methods. It is easiest to purchase healthy young specimens from nursery stock.
The well-developed root of the mature elderberry shrub can spread underground, sending up new shoots nearby. This habit allows the elderberry to establish groves in likely areas. Using a sharp shovel, you can dig out these “new starts” and create an elderberry grove elsewhere on your property, or give new plants to friends for their medicine wheel gardens.
Companions: Elderberry grows happily with shade-loving herbs in the medicine wheel garden, as it provides the shade. Blue cohosh, bearberry pennyroyal, and goldenseal are good companions.
Oenothera biennis
Onagraceae (evening primrose family)
Oenothera is named for an herb to induce sleep described in Historia Naturalis, a work compiled by the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (A.D.23–79) that remained a standard reference for many centuries. The common name, evening primrose, reflects this plant’s habit of blooming just at sundown, as evening begins. Its species name, biennis, means “lasting for two years”—another habit of this herb.
The genus Oenothera embraces about eighty species of herbs, mostly sun-loving, widely distributed throughout the Western Hemisphere. Evening primrose favors dry, sunny soils of meadows, roadside edges, and other waste places from Newfoundland to British Columbia, south to Florida and Texas, and west to Idaho. It grows erect, up to eight feet tall, on sturdy, hairy, pithy stems bearing numerous alternate lance-shaped leaves.
The familiar four-petaled yellow flowers of this biennial plant appear in the second year of growth, blooming from June through October in the Northeast. The large and often showy blooms with their drooping sepals and X-shaped stigmas open on cloudy days or just before or at sunset for the evening pollinators. The blossoms have slight phosphorescence acquired from absorbing and storing up sunlight during the day; on a dark night the petals emit their own faint light. This unique attribute was well noticed by our ancestors.
A medley of common names from different regions speaks of multiple uses for this trusted healing plant. Sometimes called night willow herb, sundrops, coffee or fever plant, scurvish or scabbish, evening primrose is also known as tree primrose, large rampion, four o’clock, and king’s cure-all.
Traditional uses: All plant parts were used, in their specific seasons, for a wide variety of healing purposes. The Great Lakes Ojibwa and Potawatomi Indians bruised and soaked the plant for wound dressings and to relieve bruises and other skin problems. They used the fine black seeds as food and a healing medicine. Roots steamed as vegetables and made into teas were used to treat obesity and aid digestion, as well as to treat skin disorders and to promote clear skin.
Modern uses: Today many people take EPO (evening primrose oil), usually in soft gel caplets. Made from the plant’s seeds, it is particularly popular among active people, especially women, seeking natural nutritional support. EPO is a rich source of linoleic acid and gamma-linoleic acid, important essential fatty acids that aid proper cellular metabolism and that are not found in most common foods. EPO has been used to treat multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia, and to aid stabilization of kidney transplant patients, especially in Britain and Europe. Research shows that EPO is also useful for treating eczema, asthma, migraines, PMS, breast problems, diabetes, alcoholism, and arthritis.
Cautions: Do not take evening primrose oil if you suffer from epilepsy.
Growth needs and propagation: Evening primrose grows well in dry, open, sunny locations. Seeds can be sown directly in the garden where you want this plant to grow. It generally takes two years for seedlings to bloom, so you will want to continue sowing the seeds in your chosen location, as it will self-sow elsewhere. The seeds are also excellent to eat and very worth collecting in late summer: a few for the garden, most for the kitchen.
Companions: Evening primrose grows happily with many sun-loving herbs in the medicine wheel garden, especially bee balm, coneflower, and chili peppers.
Chamaelirium luteum
Liliaceae (lily family)
Blazing star, false unicorn root, colicroot, and devil’s-bit are some of the common names descriptive of this perennial native herb. The Greek terms chamai, “on the ground,” and leirion, “lily,” lie behind its genus name, possibly referring to its small size and delicacy compared to showier lilies. The species name comes from the Latin luteus, “yellowish.” Actually, the flowers are first white and gradually turn yellow.
The only species in its genus, fairywand is native to eastern North America, favoring meadows and moist woodlands from Ontario to Florida and west to Mississippi, Arkansas, and Illinois. It grows from one to four feet tall from the tuberous underground stem (rhizome), producing broad basal leaves in early spring, then a slender stalk tipped with tight clusters of small flowers. The female plants are slightly taller and leafier than the male plants.
Traditional uses: American Indian herbalists chose fairy wand for a uterine tonic, and women also chewed the roots to prevent miscarriage. Later in their pregnancy, they used the tea as a tonic to aid childbirth by stimulating the muscles of the womb. Fairywand was also a usefultreatment for nausea, especially in early pregnancy. The dried roots served medicinally for their tonic, astringent actions, both internally and as a skin wash. Some tribal herbalists worked the dried powdered roots into a salve to massage the womb.
Modern uses: Modern herbalists continue to rely on fairywand tonics to treat uterine disorders, for pain relief, and as a diuretic. It is also valued as a digestive tonic. All plant parts are useful, but the roots that are tinctured in alcohol offer the widest use. The dried roots are sometimes carried in a medicine bag and chewed on to relieve indigestion and headache. These roots are also considered important “love medicines.”
Cautions: Avoid using fairywand during pregnancy unless prescribed by a health care specialist.
Growth needs and propagation: Fairywand favors moist, shady soils enriched with humus and decayed leaves. It can be started from seed and root divisions. This herb is so unusual that it is best to start with healthy plants purchased from a responsible nursery and cultivate your own small colony of fairywands.
Companions: Fairywand grows well with other shade-loving herbs in the medicine wheel garden. It especially appreciates ginseng, pipsisesswa, wintergreen, hepatica, and goldenseal as companions.
Hydrastts canadensts
Ranunculaceae (buttercup family)
Yellow bud scars left on the rhizome by the new stem this herb produces each year reminded observers in past centuries of letter seals then commonly used, hence the name goldenseal. In various regions, this distinctive native perennial is also known as orangeroot, yellow puccoon, or turmeric. The genus name, Hy-drastis, relates to the Greek word for water, and also probably comes from the hydra, the many-headed monster of Greek mythology that grew back two heads for each one cut off—here referring to the two distinct leaves, and multistamen flowers. The family name Ranunculaceae—meaning “little frog”—goes back to Latin, referring to the moisture-loving quality of the typical genus in the buttercup family, as we see with Actaea (baneberry) and Hepatica (red and white cohosh). Besides goldenseal, native to eastern North America, the Hydrastis genus includes only one other species, native to Japan. The low-growing goldenseal, hairy and delicate, can stand six to eighteen inches tall. Usually only two leaves, one larger than the other, develop at the top of the forked, slender stem. These palmate leaves are broad and double-toothed. A single cluster of greenish-white flowers appears in April and May and ripens to a cluster of red raspberrylike berries in early fall. Each red berry contains two shiny black seeds. Goldenseal grows in the wild from Vermont to Georgia and Alabama, west to Arkansas and Minnesota. It was once very common throughout these regions, but wild-crafting and overharvesting for commercial markets have put goldenseal on the endangered-species list. The medicine wheel garden is a perfect habitat for generating new colonies of this attractive little herb.
Traditional uses: Few wild medicines were as valuable to the Indians as this versatile botanical. The Cherokee mixed the powdered root with animal fat to wear as an insect repellent and to treat ulcers. A root tea was effectively used as an eyewash to treat eye infections. The roots were also used in teas, poultices, or tinctures to treat mouth and throat problems and jaundice, as well as uterine and digestive disorders. The dried, powdered roots served to treat infected wounds and relieve skin problems, and also for some cancers and tumors and to stop bleeding.
Indians also fancied the brilliant yellow dye made from these roots for face paint and adornment for their clothing, baskets, mats, and tools. The Algonquian word puccoon refers to this dye, and also signified the plant’s importance. Goldenseal seemed a virtual panacea; it could help with almost everything.
Modern uses: Today goldenseal is commercially grown and harvested for its medicinal roots. Modern investigations indicate that the berberine contained in the roots is antibacterial, with beneficial effects on the kidneys and intestines. It is a digestive tonic. Goldenseal eyewash is mildly antibiotic and can reduce inflammations. Goldenseal extracts also seem to lower blood sugar levels. As a mild sedative, it helps lower blood pressure, and relieves stress and anxiety.
Tea made from the roots has been used as a douche for vaginal inflammations and to treat yeast infections. It also helps reduce heavy menstrual bleeding, and is used following childbirth to check postpartum hemorrhage. Root infusions are a valuable remedy for psoriasis. Goldenseal roots have a bitter taste and are slightly sweet, with a distinctively licorice odor. The dried, powdered roots are snuffed (with caution) up the nose to relieve chronic sinus problems.
Cautions: Avoid all use during pregnancy. The goldenseal plant alkaloids are very caustic and are poisonous in large doses. Do not take goldenseal without medical supervision.
Growth needs and propagation: A challenging plant to cultivate, goldenseal takes about five years to mature from seed and demands just the right growth environment of moist, rich soil and a shady plot. A number of specialty native plant growers offer plants for the shade garden. Set the young plants about one inch deep in rich, moist earth and space them about eight inches apart. Mulch these plants well in early winter. This plant is a beauty in the medicine wheel garden, well worth the time and trouble to cultivate.
Companions: Goldenseal will grow well with sweet flag, ginseng, goldthread, hellebore, cardinal flower, boneset, and angelica.
Coptis groenlandica
Ranunculaceae (buttercup family)
This small, shiny evergreen plant greatly resembles the wild strawberry. Each leaf actually consists of three leaflets united at the end of the leaf stem. The genus name, Coptis, from a Greek verb meaning “cut off,” seems to relate to this leaf division, as if each leaf had been cut apart. The species name groenlandica means “of Greenland,” as this diminutive plant was thought to be native to northern, colder regions.
Also called cankerroot, yellow root, and mouth root, goldthread puts forth its solitary white flowers on slender, leafless stalks from May through July. Its shallow root systems resemble masses of gold threads, explaining the popular name. Hugging moist fertile ground, like strawberry plants, this lush perennial makes a dense carpet of growth in shady environments on the edge of swamps, bogs, and woods from Greenland to Alaska, south to Iowa, and southeast into North Carolina. It is one of some ten species in this genus of small perennial herbs spread across northern temperate regions. Several are cultivated in gardens as a border plant and for their medicinal qualities.
Because of ever-shrinking environments and overharvesting by wildcrafters to meet the growing demand from the health care market, goldthread is on the endangered-species list in many states. Fortunately it grows readily in moist, shady soil and prospers under cultivation, so that more gardeners and herbalists are farming goldthread.
Traditional uses: Penobscot Indians chewed the bitter roots of goldthread to relieve “smoker’s mouth” and soothe sore throats and coughs. They used a strong tea of goldthread rhizomes to treat ulcers and mouth, throat, and eye problems. This tea was also applied to babies’ gums as a topical anesthetic while teething problems persisted. The Montagnais used root decoctions to treat problems of the mouth and eyes, and the Menomini used them as gargles for children’s throat problems and to treat canker sores and tumors.
Modern uses: Highly astringent roots of goldthread are chewed to relieve canker sores, fever blisters, sore throats, and indigestion. The inherent alkaloid berberine (in the roots) is a mild sedative, which also has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. Some health care practitioners recommend a decoction of goldthread and goldenseal in equal parts to relieve the craving for alcohol.
Cautions: Do not use goldthread during pregnancy. At any time, use it only with professional supervision.
Growth needs and propagation: This herb prefers cool, rich, shady areas for growth. It is often cultivated as a ground cover in woody areas and around bog gardens in dappled sunlight. Goldthread is readily propagated from seed and division of root clumps. These want to be thinly covered with humus-enriched earth and well mulched with decayed leaf mold. A slightly more acid soil is perfect for goldthread.
Companions: Goldthread will grow well among hellebore plants, as well as American ginger, ginseng, and maidenhair fern.
Prunella vulgaris
Labiatae (mint family)
In the mid-1500s, soldiers in Germany suffered from a rampant outbreak of quinsy commonly known there as “the browns.” Translated into Latin, the German Braun became Prunella, the name chosen for this genus of plants believed to cure the “brown” infection. The common name, heal-all, says much about how this plant has been viewed across time. Our European ancestors brought heal-all to America as one of their most vital medicines. The species name, vulgaris—Latin for “common”—is certainly the hallmark of this resilient herb, which seems to grow everywhere and adapts to prevailing conditions.
An early Eurasian introduction to North America, this rugged perennial mint has naturalized widely throughout the continent. Heal-all, or self-heal, can be found growing in dense, matlike forms in our lawns and meadows, roadside edges, woodland borders, and waste places. Its purple flowers crown a dense terminal conelike head atop distinctive square stems throughout the summer. Opposite oval to lance-shaped leaves surround the creeping stems in almost compasslike symmetry of north-south and east-west. It grows from three inches to one foot tall. There are perhaps seven species of perennials in the genus Prunella found across North America. Heal-all is also closely related to ground ivy, or gill-over-the-ground, Glechoma hederacea, as well as to our native downy wood mint, Elephilia ciliata, and lyre-leaved sage or can-cerweed, Salvia lyrata. All are members of the great mint family and were used by American Indian herbalists in many special applications from headache treatments to backache relief. S. lyrata has long been a valuable folk remedy for certain cancers and for removing warts.
Traditional uses: Native American and Eurasian traditions trained herbalists to use the leaves and blossoms of heal-all to treat sores, wounds, bruises, and ulcers when poulticed on top of the problem areas. Leaf and blossom teas were also used to treat mouth sores, relieve sore throats, reduce fevers, and relieve diarrhea. A tea made from the flowering plant in China is considered cooling and tonic for the liver, as well as an aid for circulation.
Modern uses: Modern research bears out the healing benefits of heal-all, which contains the antitumor and diuretic compound ursolic acid. This plant possesses antibiotic and hypotensive qualities and has antimutagenic action. Many contemporary herbalists prescribe heal-all, and clinical herbalists provide tinctures as well as dried herbs for teas and poultices. How fortunate we are that this natural resource prospers throughout our region.
Growth needs and propagation: Heal-all thrives in almost any type of earth. Several other members of this hardy genus have been propagated and hybridized for rock gardens and shade gardens and are highly prized for their rugged endurance, especially in the medicine wheel garden. Like many mints, heal-all grows readily from root and stem cuttings. Follow normal procedures of snipping ample stem or root cuttings and covering them with two inches of good earth. Tamp it down well and water. These perennials overwinter very well and regenerate themselves, almost without need of any help.
Companions: Heal-all grows favorably with hepatica, elderberry, bayberry, Indian turnip, and bee balm. Actually, it could accompany every herb in the medicine wheel garden! It is best planted around the center prayer cairn surrounding the peace pole. Low-growing plants accentuate the peace pole and allow you to move around it easily.
Hepatica americana
Ranunculaceae (buttercup family)
Hepatica takes its common and genus names from the supposed resemblance of its lobed leaves to the shape of the liver—in Latin, hepaticus means “liver.” As its important earlier uses include treatment for liver problems, that connection may also have influenced the choice of name. Earlier observers watched nature closely for useful healing medicines. Hepaticas species name affirms that it is a native American plant, as is the sharp-lobed hepatica, H. acutiloba, whose species name literally means “sharp leaf,” from the Latin acus, “needle.”
These two native species favor moist rich woodland soil and grow from Nova Scotia to Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, west to Missouri and Minnesota. Their diminutive daisylike flowers with five to seven pastel petals range from lavender and blue to white or pink. The genus embraces about ten Northern Hemisphere species of small, hardy perennials. These ephemeral wildflowers are slightly downy (hairy) and bloom in early spring, after which their distinctive shiny green leaves dominate. They stand about four to eight inches tall.
Traditional uses: Indians used hepatica leaf teas and decoctions to treat liver ailments, as a laxative, as a digestive aid, and to wash sore, swollen breasts. This mildly astringent botanical also served as a diuretic and a treatment for colds, coughs, and fevers and, for the Seneca, as a tonic. The Cherokee chewed the roots to relieve coughs and sore throat, and the Delaware used them as hunting charms. The Forest Potawatomi used the root and leaves in a sweet tea to relieve vertigo. For the Meskwaki, the root provided decoctions to drink to treat various ailments, and the Menomini combined the hepatica roots with the roots of maidenhair fern in decoctions to treat female disorders.
During the late nineteenth century, hepatica leaves were consumed by the hundreds of thousands of pounds in various “liver tonics.” Numerous root decoctions were used as treatments for stomachaches and diarrhea and as laxatives.
Modern uses: Today herbalists use hepatica roots and leaves in some tonic preparations to treat liver and kidney problems. Hepatica also has virtue in treating indigestion, coughs, and fevers.
Growth needs and propagation: Hepatica thrives in rich, well-drained soil in mostly shade or open shade. The plants may be easily propagated from seed or root divisions or purchased from native plant nurseries.
Companions: The hepaticas grow well with other members of the buttercup family in the medicine wheel garden. They also keep good company with hellebore, maidenhair fern, ginseng, goldthread, and goldenseal.
Arisaema triphyllum
Araceae (arum family)
Very early European accounts detail how Indians living in Virginia in the 1500s dried the turniplike roots of this perennial plant and used them for bread and in soups, inspiring the name Indian turnip. Another popular name, jack-in-the-pulpit, reflects the plants unusual form at flowering time in spring, when a hooded vaselike structure, the “pulpit,” enclosing an upright fleshy-hollow spike, “Jack,” appears at the top of the stem. Yet this is actually Jack and Jill together, as the tiny flowering portion rests at the base of the spike. It is Jill, when pollinated, who produces the stunning shiny red berries in late summer after the hood has withered away.
In various places, Indian turnip is also called marsh pepper, bog onion, dragon-root, wake-robin, and starchwort. The genus name, Arisaema, derives from the Greek for “arum,” a plant type this species represents, and haima, Greek for “blood,” apparently because some arums have red-spotted leaves. Along with its importance as a healing herb, Indian turnip makes an attractive addition to shade gardens, especially a medicine wheel garden.
The hooded “pulpit” of this plant is actually a leaf called the spathe, which covers and conceals clusters of minute yellowish-green flowers pollinated by ants and other crawling insects. They form at the base of the tubular spike, known as a spadix, which can be dark green to brown. The spathe may vary from green-and-white stripes to green-and-purple stripes. Later in the year, flowers ripen into tightly clustered shiny green berries, which turn shiny red before frost. Although the species name, triphyllum, means “three leaves,” Indian turnip usually has only two, but each is composed of three wavy leaflets.
The plants can grow up to two feet tall from their underground corms. These corms have the innocent look of a small turniplike potato, but they are fiery hot to the taste until boiled or roasted. Like the other plant parts, they contain irritating oxalate crystals, most unpleasant to eat uncooked, but when rubbed on swollen joints they provide relief for rheumatism and swelling.
Indian turnip is almost a loner in the Arisaema genus of about two hundred species, most native to Europe and Asia. The only other prominent North American species is green dragon, or dragonroot, A. dracontium, found from Quebec to Florida and west to Texas, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. It had medicinal uses among many native tribes, principally for women’s needs.
Traditional uses: Documented accounts through the past four centuries report American Indian uses of Indian turnip in myriad medicinal treatments, both alone and in formula with other botanicals. For example, Indian herbalists used the dried, aged root (corm) to treat colds and coughs and to strengthen the blood. The corm and ripe berries, rubbed on or poulticed externally, served to ease rheumatic joints, sores, boils, abscesses, and ringworm.
Historically a tea from the roasted root was used as a purgative and treated asthma, colds, bronchitis, coughs, laryngitis, and headaches. The external applications treated snakebite, boils, and rheumatic pains.
Modern uses: Indian turnip’s dried corm (rhizome) is used in a treatment for chest conditions, but only under professional supervision, as it is very toxic. The related Chinese species, Arisaema consanguineum, tian nan xing, is used also for respiratory chest conditions and always prescribed along with fresh ginger root, Zingiber officinale, internally. Each species continues to be used fresh externally for arthritic problems, ulcers, and other skin conditions.
Cautions: Do not eat or taste any fresh plant parts, which are intensely irritating. Calcium oxalate crystals found in the whole plant are especially concentrated in the berries and corm.
Growth needs and propagation: This hardy plant favors shady locations with rich, well-drained, humus-enriched soil. It grows readily from seeds and natural offsets from the main corm. The corm should be planted eight to twelve inches deep, as the roots come out of the upper portion. However, the corms will also grow in more shallow situations, and sometimes even over large stones.
Companions: Indian turnip grows well with other shade-loving wildflowers in the medicine wheel garden. It especially likes the company of hepatica, blue flag, ginseng, ginger, gold-enseal, and goldthread.
Impatiens capensis
Balsaminaceae (touch-me-not family)
When you touch the ripe green seed-pods of jewelweed, they immediately fly open, as if they couldn’t wait even a moment to fling their turquoise seeds everywhere. That habit accounts for the genus name, Impatiens, and also for its other common name, touch-me-not. Be wary, especially for children’s benefit, if you wish to pop a seedpod, as it could hurl a seed straight into your eye! These plants also grow very fast. Like little jewels, their bright trumpet-shaped flowers dangle from the slender, translucent stems through much of the summer, drawing hummingbirds. The Latin species name, capensis, refers to the Cape of Good Hope, where these plants were thought to originate.
Widespread across North America, jewelweed is among the most common native annuals. It grows in moist areas and shaded wetlands, often near (even in) poison ivy and stinging nettles. When crushed and rubbed on exposed skin, the succulent stems are a useful antidote (and preventive) for poison ivy and other types of skin irritations. These tall, multibranched herbs have smooth green ovate leaves, long with scalloped edges and pale and glaucous underneath. Slender bloom stalks emerge from the plant stem at upper leaf axils and ripen into the dangling, swollen green fruit capsules that explode and scatter their seeds so readily. This mechanism explains why you often see dense colonies of jewelweed dominating some wet areas. These tender annuals are quite sensitive to cold, and decline quickly with the first touch of frost in autumn.
Long considered herbs for special uses, three species of jewel-weed grow wild in the Northeast, where American Indians used them in various topical medicines. In this region, they usually germinate from seeds in April and grow rapidly in favorable soils to reach heights of two to five feet by July.
The common jewelweed, I. capensis (previously known as I. biflora and I. fiilva), is also called orange jewelweed, spotted touch-me-not, or lady’s-earrings. In the summer months, it flashes its golden-orange flowers. The spurred blossoms, spotted with orange, resemble miniature cornucopias and are especially attractive to hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. Pale or yellow jewelweed, I. pallida, has slightly larger blossoms: pale yellow, sometimes spotted with dots of orange-brown. Otherwise, this species is similar in most ways to the previous one and can often be found growing nearby. A large purple- to rose-flowered royal jewelweed, I. glandulifera, has been naturalized in areas of the Northeast, as well as in some areas of the Northwest coast. Introduced from the Himalayas, it is a striking beauty.
Traditional uses: Many American Indian medicine people used applications of common and yellow jewelweed to treat a broad range of internal and external problems. These botanicals have probably been valued medicinals for far longer than we could know. The young shoots and blossoms are esteemed wild edibles among many native peoples and foragers. Some Great Lakes and Plains tribes used these native herbs to treat colds, cramps, sprains, and much more. Jewelweed was both used alone, for its soothing analgesic benefits, and mixed in formulas and tinctures and poultices with other botanicals for broader therapeutic applications. The Nanticoke applied jewelweed leaves as a poultice to treat burns and also used jewelweed tea to wash, disinfect, and to soothe burns and other skin eruptions, as did the Mo-hegan, Delaware, and other eastern tribal peoples. Creek and Cherokee peoples used the crushed plant and its juice to rub on the skin to treat a number of skin eruptions, including hives, eczema, measles, insect stings, spider bites, and poison ivy rashes, as well as to heal bruises.
In dealing with poison ivy, the principal benefit of this herb comes from early treatment, as the soothing juice of jewelweed counteracts the more deleterious oils of poison ivy (and also the urtic acid of stinging nettles). Rub the jewelweed plant juices on the skin parts exposed to poison ivy as soon as possible. Once the poison ivy rash appears, the jewelweed juice (and tincture) can calm the inflammation, which invariably must run its course. Almost nothing can cure poison ivy, yet applications of jewelweed can usually prevent its most irritating skin eruptions.
Modern uses: Modern investigations show that jewelweed has a soothing fungicidal benefit useful in treating athlete’s foot, ringworm, and other skin problems. It is used fresh or frozen, or in tinctures and liniments. It continues to be used as an early antidote to poison ivy rashes.
Growth needs and propagation: Jewelweed is a self-sowing annual that prefers to grow in moist, rich soil. It is easily grown from seed.
Companions: Jewelweed grows well with other moisture-loving plants in the medicine wheel garden. It is especially agreeable with yellow dock, mayapple, and maidenhair fern.
Eupatorium maculatum
Compositae (daisy family)
The name joe-pye weed supposedly comes from an Indian medi cine man named Joe Pye who used this species successfully to treat typhus throughout New England in the late 1700s. Some say he was a Wampanoag Indian herbalist. Eupatorium, the genus name, also has a fascinating origin—see the entry on boneset for details. The Latin species name, maculatum, means “spotted”: this species is often called spotted joe-pye weed, for its purple-spotted stems. E. purpureum, a closely related herb, is known as sweet joe pye weed, or gravel root.
Also called trumpet weed, kidney root, queen of the meadow, and quill-wort in various regions, spotted joe-pye weed ranges from Newfoundland to British Columbia south to Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, and New Mexico, favoring wet meadows and mountainous areas. This lanky, sturdy herb can grow from two to six feet tall. Long lance-shaped leaves emerge from its purple or purple-spotted stem in whorls of four to five, like collars. Large purple flower clusters appear atop the tall stems in July and bloom through September. Sweet joe-pye weed, E. purpureum, also called king-of-the-meadow, can grow up to twelve feet tall. Its sturdy stems, pithy and green with purple at the leaf nodes, are topped with pale pink to light purple flowers densely packed into a rounded blossom head. As with its “spotted” cousin, blooming continues from July through September. The whorls of long lance-shaped leaves surrounding the stem give off a fragrance like vanilla when stroked or lightly brushed.
Traditional uses: All parts of this perennial plant were used in various herbal preparations. American Indians made root and leaf teas and decoctions to treat gout and kidney infections as well as rheumatism. These teas also were used as a diuretic and to relieve bladder complaints. In addition, they served to treat fevers, colds, diarrhea, and liver ailments. The Ojibwa washed their children with a strong decoction of this plant to strengthen them and prevent illness. The Potawatomi used the leaves as a poultice on burns and the root medicine to clear and tone the uterus after childbirth. The flowers were considered a good-luck talisman. The Meskwaki used this plant as one of their love medicines.
Modern uses: Herbalists today use these herbs (both species) to treat colds, fevers, and support the immune system. The whole plant is considered a tonic, and the roots provide a laxative.
Cautions: Do not use while pregnant; at any time, use these plants only with a specialist’s supervision.
Growth needs and propagation: Joe-pye weeds prefer moist, rich earth and full sun to partial shade. Both species adapt well to the garden, where they provide a tall, sturdy backdrop for shorter herbs. They are best propagated from root divisions in late summer and fall. Cut generous sections with enough bud and root to sustain new growth. Dig them into the medicine wheel garden, six to eight inches deep, water well, and tamp the earth over them, top-dressing them with leaf mulch.
Companions: Both species grow well with sweet flag, black cohosh, boneset, Indian turnip, and cardinal flower. They will also happily accompany angelica, jewelweed, sweetgrass, and hellebore.
Adiantum pedatum
Polypodiaceae (fern family)
The fineness of the fan-shaped leaflets and stems of this dainty native fern were thought to inspire the common name, maidenhair, also reflecting its ephemeral, airy quality. The genus name derives from a Greek word meaning “drench;” together with the species name, a Latin word meaning “foot,” it properly suggests a plant growing in moist places, capable of having wet feet.
The distinctive maidenhair fern grows in rich woods and other moist, shady areas from Maine to Georgia, west to Louisiana and Oklahoma, and north to Minnesota. Its thin, simple leaves are delicate and fan-shaped, spread in curving fronds atop a slim, shiny black stalk. It can stand up to one and a half feet tall. The Venus maidenhair fern, Adiantum capillus-veneris, standing up to twenty inches tall, grows in moist limestone areas in more southerly re-\gions from Virginia to Florida, west to Texas and California. It too prefers shaded locations. These two plants number among the few species of Adiantum ferns that grow in temperate North America. Most of the more than two hundred members of this genus are found in the American tropics, and a few in East Asia.
Traditional uses: Both North Americas maidenhair fern species have considerable folk traditions of uses. American Indians used the maidenhair fern as an important medicine plant, brewing the whole plant into teas to treat asthma, nasal congestion, sore throats, hoarseness, flu, colds, and fevers. Many tribes considered maidenhair tea a valuable hair wash and scalp treatment. They also used both species to treat snakebite and poulticed them on wounds and swellings. Some tribal basket weavers used the shiny black stems and weaving elements to create striking basket designs.
Modern uses: Today, herbalists recognize the continuing virtues of maidenhair fern extracts in treating coughs, bronchitis, sore throat, excess mucus, and chronic nasal congestion. Many also use these fern extracts to treat hair and scalp conditions. A related species, A. caudatum, is an antispasmodic that is useful in treating asthma.
Cautions: Maidenhair fern is on the protected and endan-gered-species list in most states and should never be dug from wild habitats. It contains no known toxins.
Growth needs and propagation: Maidenhair ferns grow best in rich, moist, limestone soils in semishade to full shade. It is worthwhile to treat the soil where you wish to plant them with some additional powdered limestone if you feel it is necessary. They will thrive when protected against strong wind. Planting sturdy plants adjacent to the maidenhair, like an elderberry shrub, or positioning standing stones nearby on the windward side of delicate plants provides effective windbreaks. Although these ferns can be grown from spores and from root divisions, success is greatest when you purchase healthy plants from a nursery growing them for market.
Companions: Maidenhair fern grows well with mayapple, moccasin flower, pipsissewa, and skullcap as well as other shade-loving plants, in the medicine wheel garden.
Podophyllum peltatum
Berberidaceae (barberry family)
Wild lemon, Indian apple, American mandrake, raccoon berry, goosefoot, and wild jalap are some of mayapple’s common names. Each speaks to a part of this plant’s personality. The genus name, Podophyllum, means “plant with footlike leaves”—a good description of this plant, which has large leaves with the stalk attached at the center of the surface, as well as footlike roots that lateral off at right angles an inch below the soil surface. The species name, peltatum, is derived from the Greek peltatus, meaning “having a shield.” Indeed, the large, smooth leaves do shield the whole plant like an umbrella. Though mayapple emerges from the earth, umbrellalike, and blooms in May, it takes another season, usually until August, to set the apple, a small, single, green ellipsoid berry that ripens to a golden yellow fleshy fruit and becomes heavily fragrant. These wonderfully aromatic fruits smell almost tropical, the quality that draws the deer, fox, possum, raccoon, and wild turkey to eat them.
The small, unique Podophyllum genus has only two species, native to North America and Asia. Mayapple grows vigorously in the wild, in rich woodland environments, from Quebec to Florida and Texas. Each of its large, solitary leaves is deeply, palmately lobed. A single (occasionally double) white flower, daisylike with six waxy petals, appears in the fork between the leaves; this is a classic May bloom. The whole plant may stand one and a half feet tall and almost a foot across. It is a stunning plant in shade gardens.
Traditional uses: American Indians used mayapple roots as a strong purgative and liver cleanser. Some tribes used the pounded fresh or powdered dried roots to shrink skin tumors. The Cherokee used the juice of the roots dropped into the ear to cure deafness. Many tribes worked the root juices into syrup to take as a systemic cleanser and cathartic. The Meskwaki used these roots to treat rheumatism, and it was one of their nine herbs formulated to treat snakebite. Many different tribal groups knew of its poisonous qualities and used it to attempt suicide, and some tribes put it into their enemies’ food. Most tribes enjoyed eating the fruits, which are not toxic when fully ripe.
Several tribes used decoctions of mayapple roots to treat corn kernels before planting to keep the birds and other predators from eating them. The Iroquois relied on the leaves as one of their important corn medicines, along with the flowers of elderberry. The same treatment was used for potatoes in the garden to kill potato beetles. It was considered sympathetic magic. Canadian research has found that mayapple grows on the sites of old Indian villages, and many authorities believe that Indians planted their most important medicine plants close to their dwellings in order to ensure ready supplies.
Modern uses: The active principle, podophyllin, is found throughout this plant but is intensively concentrated in the rhizome. Scientists are exploring this chemical as a possible treatment for skin cancers and some tumors. Some scientists have suggested that mayapple be grown on a commercial scale as a cash crop because of the growing interest in it as a cancer treatment.
Cautions: Mayapple is poisonous. Only the fully ripe fruits are edible, and they tend to be too aromatic for most people’s palate. The powdered root can cause skin and eye problems.
Growth needs and propagation: Mayapple prefers the damp, rich earth of open woodlands and pastures. It accommodates very well to the medicine wheel garden, where it will create a stunning colony. As it begins to spread, you can dig out the extra plants and place them in another wildflower garden or at the edge of a meadow or woods, or give them to interested friends. Mayapple is easily divided by rootstocks in the fall, or sow the seeds in spring. As it likes partial shade and a moist soil high in organic matter, top-dressing with well-rotted compost is important for healthy plants.
Companions: Mayapple is a good companion for maidenhair fern, skullcap, cardinal flower, ginseng, goldthread, and goldenseal.
Cyprtpedtum calceoltis
Orchidaceae (orchid family)
Said to have risen from the sea at the island of Cyprus, the Greek goddess Aphrodite (Roman: Venus) was also called Cypris. When the genus name Cypripedium and the species name calceo-lus, meaning “shaped like a slipper,” are linked, they suggest that the form of this native orchid’s flower resembles Venus’s slipper or sandal. Early observers gave the stunning plant the more down-to-earth name moccasin flower because the flower reminded them of the gathered leather moccasins worn by American Indians. One way or the other, shoes seem to be part of the picture! Nerve root, American valerian, and whippoorwill-shoe are some of moccasin flower’s other popular names.
Moccasin flower grows from Nova Scotia south to Alabama and west to Missouri and Minnesota, favoring moist woodlands, open meadows, and swampy banks. This showy perennial herb grows one to two feet tall. The large oval leaves can be up to eight inches long, clasping a solitary sturdy stem. A single yellow blossom appears in late spring, often tinged with purplish brown. The large lower petal transforms into a yellow pouchlike feature (the slipper), supported by more slender petals (sepals) twisting out around it.
The smaller related species C. calceolus var. parviflora tolerates a more northerly range but grows to only about eight inches tall. The robust pink moccasin flower, C acaule, often called pink lady’s slipper, grows to about fifteen inches tall in similar environments. The small white moccasin flowers, C. candidum and C. passerinum, are also worthy of consideration for the medicine wheel garden. The latter species ranges from Canada to Alaska, blooming in early summer.
Traditional uses: Each of these species had tremendous medicinal value for American Indians and herbalists, and these uses continue. The root extracts are valued as sedatives and nervines. To aid women in childbirth, the Cherokee Indians used decoctions of the yellow moccasin flower, to which they added chick-weed and purslane. The Penobscot Indians used a decoction of the orchid root alone to treat nervousness, and the Tete de Boule Indians used it for stomach problems and urinary infections. Root decoctions also served the Mohawk Indians to treat respiratory problems, tuberculosis, and epilepsy, and the Chippewa (Ojibwa), Menomini, and Meskwaki used it for relieving women’s disorders and easing childbirth. The dried roots were carried in medicine bundles, and some used them in love medicines along with other charms. A belief existed that the root could induce dreams of the supernatural.
Modern uses: Modern herbalists use a tincture of moccasin flower root as a sedative to treat insomnia, depression, menstrual irregularities, PMS, and nervous anxieties. Many herbalists are farming this respected wildflower in similar ways to ginseng and goldenseal to meet growing demand. As conservationists, more and more gardeners are working to establish native orchid ecosystems wherein these species can flourish.
Cautions: All moccasin flowers can cause dermatitis. Large doses are dangerous.
Growth needs and propagation: Moccasin flower grows well in moist, rich earth. In the wild, native orchids live symbiotically with specific fungi under highly specialized soil conditions. For this reason they do not grow well from seed or transplant well from the wild. It is best to purchase healthy plants from a reputable nursery with good growth starter mix including the necessary fungi. An added complication is that deer like to eat them, so many gardeners must protect them with a mesh cover. It is well worth the effort to cultivate these amazing beauties!
Companions: Moccasin flower grows well with other native orchids such as pink lady’s slipper, spotted coralroot, and adam-and-eve-root. It will also accompany strawberry, yarrow, sweet-grass, and blue flag.
Mahonia aqutfoltum
Berberidaceae (barberry family)
This evergreen shrub’s genus name, Mahonia, honors the nineteenth-century American botanist Bernard McMahon, and the species name, aquifolium, comes from Latin words meaning “sharp” and “leaf”—with pointy leaves. It certainly describes this native American holly, which is also called blue barberry, mountain grape, and holly mahonia. This genus embraces more than one hundred species of thornless evergreen shrubs native to North and Central America and Asia.
The distinctive leaves of Oregon holly grape, alternate and spiny-toothed, grow almost three inches long. Lustrous dark green above and green below, they turn bright red in the fall, earning the Spanish name yerba de sangre, “herb of blood.” The creamy yellow flower clusters appear in spring, ripening into fall clusters of juicy red berries. This shrub can grow to three feet tall or more in favorable locations. M. repens, another species of Oregon holly grape that grows in the Southwest, is a creeping ground cover, while the related M. trifoliata, also called algerita in the Southwest, can grow into a sizable shrub or a small bushy tree. Each of these species has yellow inner bark and roots high in the alkaloid berberine.
Traditional uses: Indian herbalists gathered the mature roots and stem bark from midsummer into winter. They used these botanicals for medicinal treatments for liver and digestive problems, and they made a fine yellow dye from these plant parts to color their baskets, bags, mats, and clothing.
Modern uses: Contemporary herbalists continue to seek and grow these species to make a bitter tonic of the roots in alcohol. This tonic is used as a fine digestive aid and a stimulant to liver metabolism, as well as an antimicrobial for the skin and intestinal tract.
Cautions: Do not take in large doses.
Growth needs and propagation: Mahonias are hardy in northern regions if carefully protected from the wind and hot sun. Seeds, suckers, layers, and cuttings of the half-ripe woody growth easily propagate new plants. The last three should be kept under glass in a greenhouse arrangement until secondary roots form. Healthy plants should be ordered from nurseries for best results.
Companions: Oregon holly grape grows happily with yarrow, sweetgrass, sage, and bayberry in the medicine wheel garden. It will also be a pleasing companion for strawberry and bearberry
Chimaphila umbellate
Pyrolaceae (wintergreen family)
If you ever played the old board game of Uncle Wiggly maybe you remember the phrase “The bad pipsissewa shivered and shook as Uncle Wiggly three steps took.” This pretty creeping evergreen herb certainly does not deserve the reputation of bad guy! Its Algonquian Indian name, pipsissewa, comes from a Canadian Cree word meaning “breaks it into small pieces,” such as breaking up a stone in the bladder. Its official genus name, Chimaphila, means “winter-loving,” as these tiny shrublike plants are often prominent in winter snow. The species name, umbellata, points to their little umbrellalike flowers.
Also called wintergreen, ground-holly, wax-flower, and prince’s pine, pipsissewa is native to the eastern woodlands and thrives in a mixed hardwood forest. The stems can stand ten inches tall, topped in midsummer by one to three small, fragrant, drooping, white-to-pink blossoms. These small, waxy flowers eventually stand straight up in climax form and become woody and fibrous as each plant projects its ripe seedpod aloft. Striped or spotted pipsissewa, Chimaphila maculata, also called ratsbane or rheumatism root, is a close relative.
Traditional uses: Native peoples chewed and sometimes smoked the leathery leaves of pipsissewa to treat numerous conditions. Leaves and roots were steeped in strong teas (decoctions), sometimes formulated with other native herbs, to relieve coughs, colds, bladder complaints, and kidney problems. Eastern Algon-quians used the tea to season other medicines, to relieve PMS problems, and as a diuretic, astringent, and sudorific (to induce sweating) for the sweat bath. Iroquois herbalists used this to treat stomach cancer and rheumatism. Some tribes used leaf decoctions to treat eye problems, and drank them as spring tonics. Along the West Coast, from British Columbia to southern California and into Idaho, is found the western C. menziesii, a whorled, often variegated species that stands six inches tall. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia poulticed the whole pulverized plant to reduce swelling in joints, legs, and feet. Native peoples also poulticed the leaves on skin tumors, ulcers, and sore muscles, especially as a backache remedy.
Modern uses: A decoction made from pipsissewa leaves was an original ingredient in traditional root beers, and pipsissewa extract continues to be used as a flavoring agent in some candies and soft drinks as well as in various health care products. It provides an earthy, musky taste.
Cautions: The biologically active compounds arbutin, sitos-terol, and ursolic acid can produce various healing benefits but also irritate sensitive skin.
Growth needs and propagation: Pipsissewa favors dry woodlands and sandy soils. Across most of our northern temperate regions, their shiny green toothed leaves are signs of healing through winter snows. However, pipsissewa is now endangered throughout much of its natural range, making it especially important to cultivate in our medicine wheel gardens. It is difficult to propagate from seed. Propagate from one-inch pieces of underground rootstock left under leaf mulch.
Companions: Pipsissewa grows well with most of the shade-loving plants in the medicine wheel garden, especially mayapple and maidenhair fern.
Phytolacca americana
Phytolaccaceae (pokeberry family)
This powerful medicinal plant has a battery of regional names: pokeweed, scoke, poocan, garget, pigeon berry pigeon-blood, poke-salat, cancer root, and cancer jalap. Its Latin name, Phytolacca, refers to the family it belongs to: phyto, meaning plant, and lac, meaning a crimson dye; americana speaks for itself, identifying the species as a native. This widely spread perennial grows from Maine to Florida and Mexico, and across the West, except in the Dakotas.
Mature poke plants, multibranched with ruby-red stalks and stems in late summer, can grow up to ten feet tall. Earlier, small flowers appear in long, often curving or drooping spires. Each tiny greenish-white, petal-like sepal ripens into a purple-black, fleshy berry. Songbirds favor the ripe, dark purple berries and excrete the fertile black seeds indiscriminately, thus assuring a wide distribution for this amazing herb. After killing frosts arrive, it dies back to the ground.
Poke’s genus embraces about twenty-five species of coarse herbs, shrubs, and treelike perennials native to the tropics and warm regions. The Brazilian species, Phytolacca dioica, is an evergreen tree that can grow to sixty feet tall and develop a thick trunk. Two East Asian species, P acinosa and P esculenta, are grown as ornamentals and potherbs. American poke is one of our most rugged, enduring herbs, with many historical and contemporary uses.
Traditional uses: American Indians made use of all plant parts in their specific seasons of optimum strength. Throughout the winter, even year-round, the often-huge taproots, fresh or dried, were pounded and poulticed on wounds, tumors, bruises, rheumatic swellings, and sore breasts. Poke root was vital in many cancer and diabetes remedies.
Pokeberry tea served to treat rheumatism, arthritis, and other joint infirmities; the warm tea was helpful as a skin wash to treat bruises, swellings, and sprains. Many believed this spring tonic was also a powerful preventive medicine.
Young spring shoots of American poke provided delicious, asparaguslike greens for our ancestors, and still do for us. When only six inches high, they are easily collected and stewed as a potherb. I remember my grandmother and mother enjoying this spring ritual and teaching us to pick the youngest green spears before the leaves fully form. The cooking water should be brought to a boil and poured off at least once to discard the dark, bitter elements.
The plant’s simple, ovate, alternate leaves exude bright green ink when crushed or rubbed. Crushed pokeberries yield one of nature’s most brilliant magenta colors. Exciting ranges of inks and dyes come from some of the poke species, but unfortunately they are not sun-fast. Unless overdyed, the colors will fade.
Modern uses: Contemporary herbalists view poke with both respect and caution. A tincture of poke root is used as a blood cleanser in very small amounts and also taken to relieve lymph congestion and swollen lymph nodes. American pokeweed contains numerous alkaloids and complex chemicals, some of which are quite harmful to human systems. A pokeweed mitogen is being studied in antitumor immunity research, as it seems to stimulate cell transformation. Poke root is used in several herbal cancer remedies, including essiac and floressence.
Cautions: The whole plant is toxic. Never use during pregnancy. Plant juice of pokeweed can cause dermatitis in very sensitive individuals.
Growth needs and propagation: Poke grows readily from seeds and root cuttings. The main effort needed is to keep this plant under control in the garden, where it will grow up like a shrub, towering six to ten feet tall from mature roots.
Companions: Poke grows well with almost everything, especially yarrow and strawberry. It seems to enhance the growth of gourds.
Opuntia polycantha
Cactaceae (cactus family)
The genus name of this spiky plant, Opuntia, was given in respect for the ancient city of Opus or Locris, Greece. Polycanthos, the species name, in effect means “many corners,” perhaps referring to the structure of this cactus, whose jointed series of flat pads grow at angles to one another. The common name prickly pear refers to the pearlike fruits, often sold in fruit stalls and vegetable markets across the country. To add further confusion, the tasty fruits are commonly called “tunas” in the Southwest, or “tuna pears”… so much for names! The large, bristly Opuntia genus embraces perhaps three hundred species of prostrate to treelike, mostly jointed cacti, found from Massachusetts and British Columbia to the Straits of Magellan. These mostly awkward and coarse plants, also called cholla cacti, have formidable spines and showy flowers and fruits. I have encountered great colonies of opuntia in full, glorious bloom on islands of the Norwalk Archipelago in Long Island Sound, where they overwinter well and welcome the seabirds back to their rookeries with their large yellow spring blossoms. Their ability to withstand unfavorable growing conditions make them useful ornamentals, especially in rock gardens, sandy banks, and the medicine wheel garden.
O. ficus-indica, the Indian fig or tuna, is widely grown for its abundant edible pads and fruits. Centuries ago, the Spanish adopted the Taino Indian word tuna for this plant’s small red fruits, long a favored food in tropical America. The teddy bear cactus, O. bigelovii, grows three to eight feet tall in the West and produces pale yellow flowers in spring. The flapjack cactus, O. chlorotica, grows up to six feet tall with long spines and yellow flowers. The beaver- tail or rose tuna, O. basilaris, has yellow- to rose-colored blossoms. There are so many fascinating species of cholla, hedgehog, and The rickly pear to consider for the xeriscape garden.
Traditional uses: Throughout the Indian pueblos, both the pads and the sweet, delicious fruits of the prickly pear and many other native cacti were and continue to be eaten. The Zuni made a fine red dye from the prickly pear fruits and the bee plant, dried and ground together. The pads and fruits are best gathered with sharp shovels and gloved hands; then the spines may be roasted or burned off. The peeled pads are used in the mouth to ease inflamed gums and mouth sores, and can be applied as poultices to tumors and skin injuries. The dried flowers are also used in poultices, and are applied to skin as anti-inflammatory treatments. These dried-flower poultices can improve hair and scalp conditions as well. The mucilaginous juice is an antiinflammatory diuretic, and the fruits are often mixed with cornmeal in various dishes. Native people also use the juice, pads, and fruits of the prickly pear to treat diabetes. red, and magenta.
Modern uses: Today there is a cultivated spineless prickly pear cactus grown and sold for the gourmet markets, especially in the Southwest, where these pads and fruits are frequent ingredients in regional foods. Pickled opuntia pads provide the nopales enjoyed in Mexican cuisine. Often available in supermarkets, the rosy red tuna pears are delicious raw or cooked into various sweet dishes and jellies. The mucilaginous exudations from the cactus pads are used directly on the skin to ease rashes and many skin problems.
Cautions: Be careful to avoid cactus spines. Handle these cacti with great care, wearing thick garden gloves; you can make a corset of rolled newspaper to wrap around the plants when handling them.
Growth needs and propagation: Prickly pears will grow well in sandy, loamy soil in full sun. They may be easily propagated from the joints (from which they readily grow roots in good soil), and grow just as readily from seeds. They grow as far north as Connecticut and Massachusetts. Prickly pear colonies are relatively slow-growing and don’t usually take over a large area. Many gardeners want them, so you may often be cutting and giving away pads to root new plants. That is how I got mine—from “friendship” gardens. Perhaps your medicine wheel garden will become a friendship garden as you share your plants with others.
Companions: Prickly pears grow well with yucca, yarrow, Oregon grape holly, and poke. They will also make good companions for many other plants in the garden, but they do not like to be crowded and overshadowed. Hummingbirds love the opuntia blossoms.
Artemisia tridentate
Compositae (daisy family)
Salvia spp.
Labiatae (mint family)
The ancient Romans associated sage with immortality, longevity, and strong mental capacities. The Latin verb sapere, from which the common name derives, means both “to have a good taste” and “to have good sense,” thus linking the plant with wisdom. Artemis, the Greek goddess of forests and hills, inspired the genus name Artemisia, which is also the Latin word for “mugwort.”
Most of the herbal and ornamental sages fall into two great camps: the genus Salvia, which lies within the great Labiatae (Lamiaceae), the mint family, and the genus Artemisia, which belongs to the compositae, or asters. The dominant sage across Europe, a Salvia, differs markedly from the American prairie sage, or sagebrush, an Artemisia.
Artemisia includes about two hundred species of aromatic annual, biennial, and perennial herbs and shrubs native mostly in dry, stony areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Many species create their own colonies, or econiches, quickly taking over disturbed ground in the wild. They are grown as ornamentals and for their medicinal, insecticidal, and aromatic qualities, and we know them mostly as the sagebrush, mugworts, wormwoods, and fragrant annies. Southernwood, absinthe, dusty miller (beach wormwood), and garden tarragon are striking Eurasian species of Artemisia familiar in many of our perennial gardens. Their small flower heads are generally in spikes or racemes of tiny disklike flowers that can range from white to yellow-green, and even brownish to purplish. The alternate leaves can be lobed or dissected, and most have unusual fragrance.
The most common species west of the Mississippi River— and the most sacred smudging herb—of the rugged, attractive native sages growing in dry areas of North America is the classic sagebrush, A. tridentata. This rounded evergreen shrub can grow up to ten feet tall, and its silvery-gray foliage and branches are highly aromatic. Nineteen species of sage are native to the greater California-West Coast regions. Sand sage, A. filifolia, can grow to five feet tall in the desert Southwest regions, while Alaskan sage, A. frigida, is a more prostrate, mat-forming species, which grows south into Kansas and Arizona. The highly aromatic white sage, A. ludoviciana, found across the West, has been hybridized into garden varieties called Silver King and Silver Queen. This native herb was first collected in the Louisiana Purchase regions in the eighteenth century—a bit of history reflected in its Latin species name.
The genus Salvia embraces more than 750 species of herbs, some growing as shrubs, widely distributed throughout the world’s dry, stony regions. Salvia comes from the Latin salvare, meaning “to cure,” and these are certainly healing plants. Some Salvias are cultivated as ornamentals and for culinary, perfumery, and medicinal uses. Our native scarlet or Texas sage, Salvia coc-cinea, is one of the most widely cultivated ornamental sages, along with the aromatic native pineapple-scented sage, S. elegans, which can grow to more than three feet tall.
Common (culinary) or garden sage, S. officinalis, is the familiar Mediterranean herb we use in cooking and some teas. This species was a favorite ancient potherb, cultivated for many centuries. Attractive cultivars grown today in varieties of purplish-red variegated leaves are purpurascens and purpurea along with the gold/white/green tricolor and the albiflora, which are favored in many of our kitchen gardens and are welcome additions to the medicine wheel garden. A California native, the aromatic blue sage, S. clevelandii, is often recommended as a substitute for culinary sage.
Many more native Salvia species are used ceremonially and medicinally, especially the southern California greasewood or white sage, Salvia apiana, which can grow three to eight feet tall, with oblong leaves covered in white hairs and white to pale lavender blooms. The Great Plains blue sage, S. azurea, has been naturalized in the East and hybridized into several showy varieties. The white woolly Mexican bush sage, S. leucantha, and the tall rosy-leaf sage, S. involucrata, are stunning southern perennial shrubs. In the Northeast, our native cancerweed, S. lyrata, is a diminutive perennial with noted medicinal uses. Wide-ranging historical uses for these herbs span the broad spectrum of human needs.
Traditional uses: Indians throughout the Americas extensively use numerous species of native sage. For example, in the Artemisia genus, many western tribes use Alaskan sage, A. frigida, and sand sage, A. filifolia, medicinally and ceremonially. Rocky Mountain sage, A. arbuscula, and California sage, A. Californica, are collected and dried for ceremonial smudging, and their leaves are chewed for relief of congestion and sore throat. Native peoples have long exploited Salvia carducea for its aromatic qualities and cooling, fever-reducing principles, along with gray or purple sage, S. leucophylla, the West Coast gray ball sage, S. dorrii, and the stout thistle sage. Some sage species are now commercially grown to meet the growing demand for their use in sacred and ceremonial rites.
Dried sage leaves, stems, blossoms, and seeds have long been used as sacred smudging herbs, and many tribes traded for favorite species to use for medicinal teas, sedatives, insecticides, and fumigants. Special clothing, especially ceremonial apparel and masks, was often packed away between layers of dried sage to protect it and keep it fresh. The spirits associated with ceremonial items were and are blessed with sage, and these items were often tied with a sprig of sage for strength and respect. Sage was and is one of the foremost sweat lodge herbs, used by American Indians to banish all negative spirits and emotions and to smudge over the fire. This beneficial herb has long been important on tribal and personal altars and carried in the medicine bag and the car.
Modern uses: Today herbalists around the world use the sages to relieve many problems. Chinese red sage, Salvia miltiorrhiza (dan shen), is traditionally used for heart and circulatory problems. Many of the European and native American species serve similar needs and also as digestive tonics, gargles, and a valuable hormonal stimulant for women throughout their childbearing years and menopause. Culinary sage, S. officinalis, is also a traditional treatment for asthma, and is drunk as a tea to clear the mind and stimulate thought. Many of us wear a sprig of sage in the garden as an insect repellent.
Cautions: Some individuals can suffer respiratory problems, such as hay fever, and some may even experience slight dermatitis from handling certain species in these two large families. Yet many people rub sage leaves on their bodies to ward off insects and never have any skin problems.
Growth needs and propagation: Most species of sage tolerate sandy alkaline soil that is well drained. They flourish in rich soil and full sun. Plants do not seem to come as well from seed as they do from root and stem cuttings; they take a good two years to come to maturity from seeds. Once mature, the blossoms and leaves can be clipped repeatedly for ritual or medicinal use. Check them carefully for plant pests, and spray with an organic soap mixture if you detect spittle bugs or spider mites. Sage has many antibacterial properties and usually remains pest-free.
Companions: Sage grows well with other gray-leaved herbs that like slightly alkaline soil, such as coneflower, evening primrose, yarrow, rosemary, and lavender.
Scutellarta lateriflora
Labiatae (mint family)
Mad-dog skullcap was the historical name for this native perennial herb, an early folk remedy for rabies. The name skullcap comes from the blossoms, which resemble a type of military helmet worn during the colonial period, when Europeans were learning of and naming most native herbs. The genus name, Scutellaria, comes from the Latin meaning “drinking bowl,” a shape similar to a skullcap; and lateriflora, the species name, means “flowering on the side.”
Found growing throughout the East in rich woodland openings and moist hedgerows, skullcap is a favorite in my American Indian medicine wheel garden and is cultivated in many herb gardens. It will grow up to three feet tall with opposite leaves (oval to lance-shaped) and branching racemes of violet-blue flowers blooming from May through September. It can often create large colonies in favorable locations.
Of some three hundred species of skullcap all told, there are nine noteworthy wild species in the eastern states, and each holds some native medicinal values. All flower in late spring and summer in shades of violet to blue, with occasional varieties of pink or white flowers. Hyssop skullcap, S. integrifolia, has slender, un-toothed leaves and grows from six to thirty inches tall in clearings and woodland edges from Connecticut to Ohio and Missouri and south. Heart-leaved skullcap, S. ovata, is a robust, softly downy species favoring limestone soil and wooded riverbanks from Connecticut to Minnesota and Wisconsin to West Virginia, and south. It can grow from one to three feet tall. Downy skullcap, S. incana, is minutely fuzzy and can develop many branches. This species favors dry woods and clearings from New Jersey to Iowa and south, standing up to three or more feet tall. Hairy skullcap, S. elliptica, is much more hairy, branched, and favors similar soils and the same general range as the downy skullcap.
Showy skullcap, S. serrata, is a smooth, slender herb that grows up to two feet tall in woods and along stream-banks from New York south along the Appalachians, while the tiny smaller skullcap, S. parvula, barely twelve inches tall, favors limestone soils from Quebec and Maine south and west to Minnesota. Veined skullcap, S. nervosa, can reach two feet tall in damp soil of thickets and woods from Ontario south to Pennsylvania, and west to Indiana and Illinois. Widespread throughout eastern wet areas from Canada to Delaware to Missouri, common or marsh skullcap, S. epilobiifolia, can grow from one to three feet tall.
Traditional uses: Strong teas of skullcap were used by the Indians to treat headaches, epilepsy, and insomnia, and for general pain relief. The leaves and blossoms also went into tonics, tinctures, and salves. The Cherokee used skullcap to relieve cramps and promote menstruation, as well as to relieve certain taboos.
Modern uses: Modern herbalists continue to take advantage of the healing powers of these native perennial herbs. Our native skullcap, S. lateriflora, and Baical skullcap, S. baicalensis (huang quin), are the principal medicinal herbs of commerce. Their tinctures, infusions, and capsules, with a bitter, astringent taste, serve to treat ailments from migraines and headaches to panic attacks, tension, and depression. It is mainly used as a nerve tonic and sedative. Skullcap medicines have restorative properties that help to nourish and support the nervous system. Often prescribed alone or in formula with other herbs, they also help relieve insomnia and menstrual pain. Teas, capsules, and tinctures made from S. lateriflora act as an antispasmodic for all types of nervous conditions, especially asthma.
Cautions: Large doses of this herb are harmful.
Growth needs and propagation: Skullcap favors rich, moist earth and semishaded areas in the medicine wheel garden. This herb will grow well in most kinds of soil and is easily propagated from root divisions. Also consider purchasing healthy young plants from good garden centers and plant nurseries.
Companions: Skullcap grows well with strawberry, mayap-ple, maidenhair fern, blue flag, and ginger.
Fragaria virginiana
Rosaceae (rose family)
These rugged little members of the rose family are some of our most common healing herbs. The name strawberry derives from an Old English word meaning “strew over the ground,” and ripe strawberries can appear to be strewn across the ground. Fragaria comes from the Latin word for “fragrance,” and virginiana means “from Virginia.” The first specimen identified was probably from the Virginia regions. Most of our native plants were identified and named by European naturalists in the 1600s and 1700s. Enthusiasm for the plants and wildlife in the New World, as America was called during the historic period, brought countless explorers to these shores.
There are perhaps twelve species of these low-growing perennial herbs, with rooting runners that can carpet a whole area. The classic compound leaves divide into three leaflets with serrated (toothed) edges. The wood strawberry has pointed leaflet tips, whereas the common or Virginia strawberry has rounded leaflet tips. The classic white flowers have five petals surrounding the center, which expands and ripens into the fleshy red fruits, which are not true berries, bearing seedlike achenes on the fruit surface. Native to northern temperate regions, strawberries will grow in almost any soil and are widely distributed across North America. Field biologists noted that the wild strawberry was the first plant to colonize the rim of Mount St. Helens, growing in volcanic ash, after the volcano subsided following its eruption in 1980.
A native Indian symbol of fertility and sacred renewal, the wild woodland strawberries are reproduced and honored in baskets, wood carvings, quillwork, moosehair embroidery, and bead-work designs. We see our wild strawberry plants, blossoms, and fruits pictured everywhere from cradleboards to traditional clothing, as it is believed that they carry special blessings.
Traditional uses: The medicinal virtues of these plants were well explored by the Indians. In the early 1600s, Jesuit missionaries working among the Huron in southern Canada described one of the Huron curing ceremonies with obvious amazement. Tscondacouane, a blind Huron man, dreamed that it was important for him to fast in order to end a raging epidemic among his people. He fasted for seven days, whereupon the spirits said to him, “We can do nothing more to you, you are associated with us, you must live hereafter as we do; and we must reveal to you our food, which is nothing more than clear soup with strawberries.” After this the Huron ate dried strawberries during the winter months in order not to get sick. This was also the practice among other tribes, as wild strawberries were incredibly numerous centuries ago and easily collected and dried for future use, as were cranberries, blueberries, blackberries, and many types of raspberries.
Roger Williams, living among the Narragansetts in 1643, wrote about the ubiquitous wild strawberries, extolling their many virtues. He noted that they were so prolific in some areas, where the Indians had planted them, that there was fruit “enough to fill a good ship.” The French traders noted the importance of trading for fresh and dried strawberries with various northern tribes.
The soothing, astringent leaves were used by most tribes in teas or decoctions to relieve stomach ailments, cramps, menstrual difficulties, and as a therapeutic body wash to relieve sunburn, rashes, and other skin irritations. Root teas were taken as blood purifiers, diuretics, and digestive aids, and the roots were chewed to relieve toothaches and sore throats, coughs, and upper respiratory distress. Some tribes used strong leaf decoctions as nerve tonics, to treat kidney and bladder problems, and to cure diarrhea.
Modern uses: Today strawberries are cultivated as ornamentals, ground covers, for herbal needs, and especially for their edible fruits. Both fresh fruits and leaves are high in vitamin C. Strawberry flavorings, essential oils, and essence have great commercial value in everything from ice cream and yogurt to shampoos, aromatherapy, herbal skin care, and soothing herbal healing formulas.
Modern herbalists honor the many therapeutic qualities of these wild plants. The ripe fruits can prove to be laxatives for some people, and some folks are sensitive to strawberry seeds. Strawberry leaf tea is a trusted, mild aid to digestion and can also stimulate the appetite.
Cautions: Some people have sensitivity to the minute strawberry seeds and find that the fruits can be diuretics. A few individuals are allergic to strawberries.
Growth needs and propagation: Strawberry grows best in rich, sandy, humusy soil, yet will do well in most soil types. It is easiest to propagate from runners cut from healthy plants. These root readily and are useful in forming great strawberry colonies. They make fine ground covers in the medicine wheel garden.
Companions: Strawberry grows well with most plants in the medicine wheel garden, especially skullcap, moccasin flower, yarrow, and yellow dock.
Rhus typhina
and other species,
Anacardiaceae (sumac or cashew family)
Sumac, spelled also sumach, comes from the Arabic word summaaq. The genus name, Rhus, comes from the Greek rhous, meaning “bushy,” which certainly describes these native herbs. The species name, typhina, means “pertaining to fever,” as these plants were used to treat fevers and colds.
There are perhaps 150 species of Rhus, erect shrubs, trees, or vines supported by clinging roots, native to temperate and subtropical regions. They have milky or resinous sap. Some, like the six species of poison ivy and poison oak, have simple leaves with three leaflets; other species have compound leaves with stunning foliage, which ranges from bright orange or yellow in autumn to scarlet red, along with colorful autumn/winter fruits. The small flowers are usually unisexual. The small terminal clusters of fruits are dry, one-seeded drupes, which ripen into attractive pyramid-like clusters atop the naked branches through late fall and winter. These deep red pyramids of fruit are important food for wildlife and were extensively used as food, beverages, and medicines by our early ancestors. All plant parts were used in many ways, in all seasons, by native peoples.
Traditional uses: The red berries and dried leaves and scraped bark of sumac were first exported to Europe in the seventeenth century as fragrant smoking ingredients. For more than twenty-five years they brought a much higher price (from European tobacconists and their patrons) than New World tobacco, Nicotiana, which would dominate this market for the next three centuries.
The sumacs are close cousins of poison ivy. Staghorn or velvet sumac, R. typhina, also called Virginian sumac, can grow to thirty feet tall, with densely pubescent twigs and fruits. This was an important source of tannin, used for tanning leather. Smooth or scarlet sumac, R. glabra, is also called vinegar tree, squawberry and squawbush, and can grow to twenty feet tall, often forming dense thickets in favorable econiches. The Kiowa call this maw-kho-la (tobacco mixture), and many native tribes esteem these botanicals for their kinnikinniks (smoking mixtures). Fragrant or sweet or lemon sumac, R. aromatica (R. canadensis), is also called polecat bush and can grow to eight feet tall, with several distinctive cultivars and varieties.
Dwarf or shining sumac, R. copallina, is also known as mountain sumac, and can grow up to twenty feet tall, often in dense thickets. This species was also an important source of tannin.
There are numerous other regional species that were extensively used by native peoples in their regions. Less common is our poison or swamp sumac, R. vernix, also called poison dogwood or poison elder, and often growing to twenty feet tall in wet areas. It can be poisonous to touch, yet is easily distinguished from its nontoxic relatives by its swampy habitats, rank odor, and greenish-white fruits, although its brilliant fall foliage is beautiful.
California, Mexico, and Central America have their own unique species of sumac. Lemonade or sourberry sumac, R integri-folia, is an evergreen shrub or tree that can reach heights of thirty feet. The evergreen or tobacco sumac, R virens, and skunkbush, R. trilobata, and its variety malacophylla, known as squawbush, have extensive ethnobotanical interest. Sugarbush sumac, R ovata, desert sumac, R. microphylla, and laurel sumac, R. laurina, are shorter, more diminutive shrubs, as is temazcal, R. terebinthifolia, the evergreen shrub native to Mexico and Guatemala.
A. Sumac Tea
A simple preparation calls for one cup of the ripe red berries of Rhus integrifolia (lemonade sumac), soaked for fifteen minutes or more in one quart of hot (not boiling) water; cool and strain. This pleasing, refreshing beverage is good hot or cold and is high in vitamin C, trace minerals, and malic acid, which gives it the light, citrusy taste so distinctive of these sumacs. In Middle Eastern cuisines ground sumac berries (zahtar) often replace lemons in fine dishes and breads.
Wilderness beverages made from plants often acted as preventive medicines and were enjoyed routinely to maintain good health or treat particular problems. “Indian lemonade” or “sumacade” was made from ripe red berries (actually dry drupes) of R glabra, R. typhina, R aromatica, R. copallina, and/or R. integrifolia.
Widely distributed across North America, the sumacs have been used in almost every conceivable way by native peoples for longer than we can know. Prehistoric evidence from almost thirty centuries ago found in the Ozarks suggests that sumac fruits were a primary food.
All plant parts have usefulness. The dense, creamy wood with its pithy center was used for maple syrup spiles, blowguns, arrow shafts, hunting and courting flutes, and hunting whistles, as well as for rhythm and percussion instruments. Sumac’s fragrant bark was used for scrolls, rolled for decorations, twisted into cordage, twisted and plaited into baskets, and pulverized into paper. It was also used to make a soft brown dye. The leaves, like the bark, are high in tannin, which added to their effectiveness in medicines, especially for external skin treatments, and made them equally valuable in tanning leather. Thick milky latex exudes from most broken plant parts, and this can be worked into fragrant, sticky pastes, natural glues, and fixatives for paints. Select twigs were used as dentifrices and chew sticks by many different tribes and settlers, as the sumacs also provided dependable toothache remedies. Sumac has long been a vital ingredient in native ceremonial and medicinal formulas, with wide applications.
Modern uses: The astringent and tonic qualities of various sumacs have made them widely respected in medicines, and according to Lewis and Lewis (Medical Botany, 1977) some specimens contain antibiotic properties and are effective in preventing tooth decay. Today the native sumacs are grown as ornamentals and extensively used as plantings along roads and highways because of their trim, graceful beauty and resistance to pollution.
Cautions: Some people experience temporary dermatitis from handling these plants, which are closely related to poison sumac and poison ivy, and both have gray-white berries.
Growth needs and propagation: Sumacs are easily cultivated from root divisions, and healthy new plant varieties can be readily gained from garden suppliers and nurseries.
Companions: Sumac grows well with many plants in the medicine wheel garden, especially wintergreen, pipsissewa, skullcap, tobacco, and yarrow.
Acorus calamus
Araceae (arum family)
Acorus is Latin for “aromatic plant,” and calamus means “reed.” Flag comes from the Middle English word flagge, meaning “reed.” Indeed, these highly aromatic reeds were quite sought after in weaving chair seats, ropes, mats, and baskets. This is also the famous “calamus root,” used for pain relief in the folktale classic from the Deep South, Uncle Remus.
Calamus, muskrat root, beewort, sweetgrass, sweet root, sweet cane, flagroot, and sweetrush are some of the many regional names. Our native sweet flag, A. calamus, is a distinctive member of the arum family, Araceae, which has about two thousand species worldwide that primarily live in wet regions. Its close relatives are jack-in-the-pulpit, green dragon, arrow arum, golden club, and skunk cabbage in the Northeast. When sweet flag is not in bloom it resembles blue flag, and like the latter it has been a highly valued root medicine among Eastern Woodland Indians and other tribes throughout its broad range for a long time.
The arum family, Araceae, includes more than 115 genera, and many of its species are cultivated ornamentals from the tropics. The native perennial sweet flag is found in wetlands, often standing in water along streams and riverbanks across southern Canada from James Bay to Nova Scotia, south to North Carolina, and west to Texas and the Oregon coast. Its long, swordlike leaves are pale glossy green, with a stiff midrib running the entire length. The plants may grow up to five feet tall.
Mature stalks may produce halfway up an outward-jutting clublike spadix (a fleshy cylindrical bloom structure) between May and August that bears tiny clusters of yellowish-green flowers. These ripen into small gelatinous berries that quickly dry up and disappear. All plant parts are fragrant when brushed or bruised, especially the highly aromatic underground rootstalks so prized in Native American medicines.
The long, creeping rootstocks, with many tiny rootlets along their lower half, are usually dug from sand or wet mud, where these plants grow in dense colonies. Old colonies of sweet flag can take over an entire econiche in low, wet pasture or marsh areas, crowding out almost all other plants. Transplanted into the garden, it becomes a delightful, slow-growing ornamental.
Traditional uses: Some observers speculate that native peoples carried these valuable roots with them, establishing new stands of sweet flag near their settlements as they moved and traded. The plant was so valuable to American Indians, possessing countless medicinal and spiritual qualities, that it was a primary trade commodity.
The roots are warm, aromatic, pungent, and bitter, and much better infused in water than in wine or spirits, as they resist the latter. Indian children were especially fond of calamus root, and would chew on a small piece, which was excellent to relieve colic, upset stomach, even toothaches. Calamus root was an early export from the colonies, being much sought after in England and China.
The Cheyenne called calamus wi’ukh is e’evo (bitter medicine), and they traded with the Sioux to obtain the plant. They tied a small piece of calamus root on their children’s necklaces, dresses, or blankets to keep away the night spirits and bless their dreams. Men and women in many different tribes wore the long leaf blades as garlands and to adorn their hair. The Great Lakes tribes used sweet flag extensively. Small pieces of the root were chewed and held in the mouth to numb toothaches and other mouth problems, and to treat stomachaches, other digestive problems, sore throats, and colds. Infusions of calamus root were also drunk to treat these same problems. Calamus water was often sprinkled on sacred items and throughout dwellings while prayers for renewal were offered.
The Hudson Bay Cree called calamus pow-e-men-arctic, meaning “fire or bitter pepper root.” The Penobscot and Nanticoke called it muskrat root, and early in the twentieth century it was noted that calamus was perhaps the most important herb in Penobscot pharmacology. A Penobscot legend told that a plague of sickness was sweeping the Indians away and no one knew how to cure the people. Then one night a man was visited by a muskrat in a dream. The muskrat told him that he was a root and where to find him. The man awoke, sought the muskrat root, made a medicine of it, and cured the people of the plague. Sections of the dried root were cut up, strung together, and hung up for the preservation of nearly every house. Stan Neptune, a contemporary Penobscot artist, wood carver, and historian, recalls the importance of eating muskrat in winter, after the animals have been feeding on sweet flag root and their meat tastes “like sweet medicine.”
Gladys Tantaquidgeon, a Mohegan medicine woman, noted that the Delaware and other Eastern Algonquians made a sweet flag tea that was used to treat coughs, colds, and suppressed menses. Sweet flag was combined with sassafras root for intestinal pains among the Delaware and other Eastern Algonquians. She described the practice of Eastern Algonquian people carrying a piece of muskrat root as a disease preventive, to chew in case of sudden illness, and just to ensure good health. Gladys also recorded the muskrat root as one of eleven botanicals steeped together for a spring tonic. The Connecticut Mohegan also used small pieces of calamus root to treat rheumatism and colds. From talisman to sophisticated compounds, sweet flag continues to be a most valued health aid.
The Pawnee name is kahtsha itu (medicine lying in water), and they have songs about the calamus in their mystery ceremonies, as these plants were considered to have mystic powers. The long blades were used ceremonially for garlands and attached to important objects to bring good luck and power. The Osage called this pexe boao’ka (flat herb), and the Omaha and Ponca called it makan-ninida; the roots were chewed to treat diabetes, especially among the Dakotas. Potawatomi powdered the root as a styptic.
Calamus is found worldwide, mainly in the northern latitudes, and has an ancient history of uses. The unpeeled, dried rhizome was officially listed in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia from 1820 to 1916 and in the National Formulary from 1936 to 1950. Doctors prescribed it for indigestion, stomach ailments, and gas, and as a general tonic.
Modern uses: Extracts and bitters made from calamus root continue to be taken to relieve stomach cramps and indigestion. Calamus has long been valued as a flavoring agent and tonic, especially in aromatic bitters, and as a stimulant and carminative. Calamus continues to be a very valuable addition to many American Indian healing formulas, ceremonies, and health care practices, and is still used, alone, in essential ways of healing from tribe to tribe. Many American Indian traditional singers carry the dried root to chew on in order to improve their singing.
Sweet flag is an important component in Chinese, Ayurvedic, and Western herbalism. The rhizome is a valued remedy for indigestion and a tonic for the nervous system. It stimulates the appetite, relieves gas and colic, and is formulated in tinctures and decoctions as well as powders. The aromatic qualities make the leaves a valuable insect repellent.
Cautions: Some Asian varieties have been labeled as unsafe because they have been associated with tumors found in some laboratory rats. The carcinogenic agent is considered to be asarone, a constituent in the volatile oil. Apparently this is not present in the American species.
Growth needs and propagation: In the wild, sweet flag can form dense, intertwining mats in shallow water. Spring or fall is a good time to dig and gather the outer rhizome tips, three to six inches long. Place them about two inches deep in garden soil. The young sprouts can grow rapidly, sending out many white hairy roots. These plants are handsome garden additions, especially in the medicine wheel garden, where their foliage is striking.
Companions: Sweet flag grows well in the company of blue flag, cardinal flower, goldthread, and jack-in-the-pulpit. It will also grow fairly well with other moist-ground-loving herbs.
Hiërochloe odorata
Poaceae (grass family)
Sweetgrass is one of North Americas most sacred plants. It is also called holy grass, vanilla grass, and Seneca grass, and is most desirable because of its vanilla-like fragrance. The genus name comes from the Greek hieros, meaning “holy, sacred, or supernatural,” and the Greek word khloros, meaning “greenish yellow.” The species name comes from the Latin word odor, meaning “having or giving off odor.” The name of the related sweet vernal grass, Anthoxanthus odora-tum, comes from the Greek for “flower” and xan-thos, meaning “yellow.” These words come to life in the minute yellowish flowers of these grasses, which are filled with yellow pollen in the spring.
These two fragrant grasses are strong perennials that grow in moist, rich earth. Sweet vernal grass will grow in dry sandy pastures and is more widespread than sweetgrass. Both have flat, smooth, shiny green blades that grow to a yard long by late summer. If you run your fingers down the leaf blades toward the roots you will feel Anthoxanthus odomtum the minute barbs (teeth that catch). Sweetgrass, Hiërochloe odorata, grows naturally from Nova Scotia to Pennsylvania and west to Ohio, Iowa, and South Dakota.
Traditional uses: As you travel across the country you will find that many Indians use an herb they call sweetgrass, but it is not always the same botanical. Out west there are many more rushes and sedges that also have fragrance, and these are called sweetgrass. Native Americans perceive these grasses to be the “hair of Mother Earth,” and so they are considered holy. Both species produce three-foot-long green blades in late summer, when they are ripe for harvesting. The long, slim blades were grouped together and braided to use on altars, to carry with medicines, and to pack with clothing. Indian men and women often braided sweetgrass into their hair during courting and ceremonial times.
Sweetgrass is used in fine basketry, mats, and ceremonial items. It is widely used as smudge (incense) for purification, and blessing ceremonies. Medicinally, sweetgrass is used in teas to treat colds, coughs, and sore throats, and also to help stop bleeding after childbirth.
The Cheyenne used sweetgrass in many of their ceremonies, especially the Sun Dance. Burning smudge of sweetgrass symbolized life’s growth and changes. They renewed their arrows during the Sacred Arrow ceremony by passing them through sweetgrass smoke. Ceremonial rattles and other accoutrements were passed through the smoke of sweetgrass.
Centuries ago sweetgrass was the most popular perfume of the Blackfeet and Flathead Indians. They braided it and kept it with them in small leather bags. A mild sweetgrass tea was used as eyewash and on the skin to treat sunburn.
Modern uses: The roots and blades contain coumarin, a fragrant compound that is sought for flavorings and perfumes. Some modern research shows that coumarin and related compounds are effective in reducing high-protein edemas, especially lympho-dema. Sweetgrass is sacred to Native Americans and used in many of their ceremonies. It is carried for protection and woven into many baskets.
Cautions: Roots and blades contain coumarin, a blood thinner, which is given to heart patients today.
Growth needs and propagation: These two sweetgrasses are easy to grow, as they usually prosper in sunny meadows. It is best to grow them from healthy rhizomes, which you can buy from a native plant nursery.
Companions: Sweetgrass tolerates competition and will grow well with yarrow, yellow dock, yucca, blue flag, and tobacco.
Nicotiana rustica
and other species, Solanaceae (nightshade family)
The genus Nicotiana was named after Nicot, a Frenchman who first brought the seeds to Europe from the West Indies, thus dispersing the commercial opportunities for growing tobacco—a crop on which numerous fortunes have been made and to which even more deaths have been attributed. Pocahontas’s second husband, John Rolfe, and their only son, Thomas Rolfe, established a lucrative tobacco farming/exporting business in colonial Virginia. The species name, rustica, means “rustic” or “of the country.”
The genus Nicotiana yields numerous tobacco species, including the highly fragrant ornamental species cultivated for our annual gardens. Connecticut, for example, was once famous for growing the large-leaved “shade tobacco,” used for cigar wrappers, and the broad Connecticut River Valley was historically called “Tobacco Valley.” Indeed, tobacco has shaped the character of many states’ economies during the past three centuries.
Tobacco is one of many Taino Indian words adopted into English and carried forward through time. Tubular stone pipes have been dated as early as 1000 B.C. from archaeological sites in eastern North America. Jacques Cartier, while exploring the St. Lawrence River in 1535–36, noted that the Iroquois Indians in that region called their tobacco quyecta. The Virginia Indians called it up-powoc. Explorer Henry Hudson noted in 1609 that the native people had copper tobacco pipes and “green tobacco, which is strong and good.” The Huron called it anondahoin.
Traditional uses: Both sacred and holy to American Indians, tobacco has always been a plant whose leaves were prayed with and seeds carefully saved for spring planting. The dried leaves were crumbled and given as offerings before wild herbs, especially medicine plants, were harvested or game animals killed. Dried, cured leaves were also used in tribal council meetings and in traditional religious ceremonies. When smoked (or burned) the upward-drifting smoke carried prayers to the Creator in the Sky World above, thus enabling one to communicate directly with the Creator and the ancestral spirits. Tobacco smoking calmed the spirit and relaxed the body. The leaves, when chewed and applied to the skin, were a favorite Indian bee sting remedy and an insect repellent. The dried, powdered leaves are still an effective insect repellent.
American Indians introduced the early settlers to smoking, which they used both medicinally and ceremonially. Pipes were most often used, although some tribes prepared and smoked corn-husk cigarettes. Pipes and tobacco were items of status and trade in colonial times. They were often used in treaty-signing ceremonies.
The Indians smoked a variety of dried wild herbs, including wild mints, colt’s foot, and goldenrod, blended with a very small amount of tobacco. Consequently, the nicotine content of their smoking materials was minor. By contrast, modern smoking materials use flavorful tobacco, rolled in chemically treated papers to assist burning and prevent flavor loss, and the nicotine content is considerable.
Prehistoric tribes in the regions now called Mesoamerica, where more species of tobacco flourish, honored “tobacco gods.” Many were aware of tobacco’s mind-altering capacities, and some of the southern tribes considered these herbs to be “flesh of the gods,” with the leaves ritually smoked in ceremonies. N. tabacum is a stout, viscid annual (in northern zones) or perennial (in southern zones). This species can grow from three to ten feet tall, with large ovate leaves and greenish-cream to pink or red tubular flowers that grow to one inch long and open to one inch across.
Western Indians used their potent native N. attenuata and N. bigelovii for tobacco. There is a striking tree tobacco, N. glauca, also called mustard tree, of southern Bolivia and northern Argentina, which is sometimes grown as an ornamental in North America. Also from South America is the long-flowered tobacco, N. longiflora, sometimes grown in the eastern United States, along with hybrids of South America’s N. acuminata.
Modern uses: Certainly more has been written about tobacco than about any other native plant. As a sacred, ceremonial, and medicinal herb for perhaps thousands of years, it has certainly been exploited and abused as a recreational drug for the past three hundred to four hundred years.
Nicotine, when inhaled, inhibits hunger-related contractions of the stomach and slightly increases blood sugar levels; it also deadens the taste buds.
Cautions: Smoking is hazardous to the health. Tobacco is a noted toxic herb. Nicotine is more addictive than alcohol, causes lung cancer, makes heart disease worse, increases the risk of dying of other diseases, hurts the child in the womb of the mother who smokes, and lowers the skills of those who smoke, according to Walter Lewis and Memory Elvin-Lewis in their book Medical Botany.
Growth needs and propagation: Tobacco is very difficult and time-consuming to start from seed. The very fine seeds must be spread in soft, sifted soil, barely covered, and misted to enable germination. Growing tobacco requires a good deal of work, and tobacco is a “heavy feeder” requiring rich soil, shade, and fertilizers during the growing season. In the case of the delicate garden nicotianas, with their beautiful, tubular, fragrant flowers, tobacco is worth the effort. When the old, wild species become established in the garden they will self-sow.
Companions: Tobacco grows well among yarrow, sweetgrass, sage, and mayapple.
Allium canadense
i Liliaceae (lily family)
Species of Allium are among the most ancient cultivated plants. Thousands of years ago the early Babylonians, Chinese, and Egyptians noted their use for foods and medicines. Allium possibly comes from early Celtic origins; the word all meant “pungent.” Canadense denotes that the plant is native to Canada or the northeastern United States. The great lily family holds many healing and ornamental plants like aloe, asparagus, daylily, and trillium.
Perhaps four hundred species of strongly odorous (when bruised) perennial bulbs in the genus Allium are native in the Northern Hemisphere. It is often hard to tell some species apart because their differences are so subtle. A. canadense is perhaps the most common and widespread species, found growing wild from southern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and from the eastern shores to the Rocky Mountains.
Traditional uses: Wild garlic, A. canadense, is also called wild onion, wild meadow leek, prairie onion, crow onion, or Canada onion. Early explorers noted many American Indian food and medicine uses for wild onions and garlic. Archaeological evidence in North America shows that native people were eating alliums more than six thousand years ago. The Menomini and Meskwaki favored wild garlic as a choice food, especially during winter, as did many Great Lakes Indians. The Winnebago called it “shin-hop,” the Pawnee called it “osidiwa,” and the Tewa Puebloans called it “akonsi.” Indeed, there are countless Indian names for this native staple food, flavoring, and medicine. The city of Chicago is said to get its name from the Winnebago Indian word for wild leeks, shikdko.
Wild garlic, Allium canadense, prospers in most soils, especially sandy bottomlands. It will grow up to two feet tall, bearing tiny pink starlike blossoms in top clusters during spring. Unlike many alliums, the leaves are not hollow, long, and bladelike; they grow from the base at earth level from the small, oval underground bulb. After the bloom, the top grows into numerous tiny bulblets with long, threadlike tails. These spicy hot additions to summer foods both flavor and heal.
Field garlic, A. vineale, is an introduced species that has become widespread in the American wild. This one can grow up to three feet tall and blooms pink or white in clusters mixed with tiny bulblets.
Wild onion, A. stellatum, is also widespread across North America. Showy umbels of six-point lavender flowers top each small bulb in the spring and can stand two feet tall above grasslike green leaves.
Nodding wild onion, A. cernuum, grows across the northern regions, often in distinct colonies. Blooms top the two-foot slender stems during summer. Their classic “nodding” characteristic and delicate pink or white blossom clusters help distinguish this species.
Wild leeks, A. tricoccum, also called ramps, usually produce two or three leaves in early spring. The whitish to creamy yellow blossom clusters follow in June and July. Wild leeks are often found in little clusters or colonies in cool woodlands. The leaves are noted spring vegetables, as are the more odorous bulbs.
Modern uses: Cultivated onions, A. cepa, and garlic, A. sativum, have been garden and gourmet favorites for many centuries as well as being long acknowledged for their medicinal virtues. Modern research has confirmed their antibacterial qualities plus their ability to help lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Wild onion and wild garlic are antibiotic and anti-inflammatory as well as stimulating to the circulation. Eaten as foods, they help prevent colds and even tooth decay. Warmed onion or garlic oil, when dropped into the ear canal, will relieve an earache. This oil has even been used cosmetically to stimulate hair growth. The alliums are valuable systemic insecticides, as eating them makes an individual less appealing to stinging and biting insects.
Cautions: The essential oils from the bulbs can be irritating.
Growth needs and propagation: The alliums favor rich, moist earth but will grow almost anywhere, especially under cultivation. They can be propagated from both seeds and bulbs, but quicker, more robust results come from planting the bulbs, which are available from many native plant suppliers. Alliums do well in groupings of related species, such as a cluster of wild garlic and a colony of wild leeks.
Companions: Wild onion, garlic, leeks, and nodding wild onion grow well with moccasin flower, maidenhair fern, yarrow, and many other plants in the medicine wheel garden.
Gaultherta procumbens
Ericaceae (heath family)
The genus name Gaultheria comes from the Celtic language of ancient Gaul; the meaning is obscure. The species name procumbens is Latin for “prostrate or flat on the ground,” which describes the low growth habits of this diminutive evergreen.
Wintergreen is related to bearberry, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, trailing arbutus, Epigaea repens, and several other na tive Indian wildflowers in the heath family. The genus Gaultheria has as many as a hundred species of ever green, erect or prostrate shrubs native chiefly to the Andes of South America, to North Amer ica, and from Asia to Australia. Creeping snowberry, G hispidula (Chiogenes hispidula), is also native to our regions. Alpine wintergreen, G. humifusa, and salal, G shallon, are native to the mountainous north western regions.
Wintergreen is a low-growing evergreen about six inches tall, with leathery dark green leaves. Solitary white, bell-like flowers emerge in summer, about one-quarter inch long, and hang nodding below the glossy leaves. Scarlet red berries follow in fall and are a tasty treat for humans and birds, especially when found in winter snow. These plants favor sandy or peaty soils and partial to full shade. Wintergreen is an occasional trailside plant found in the woods.
The oval, glossy leaves of wintergreen possess the characteristic flavorful oil. This was the original source of oil of wintergreen, which is now obtained from the gray birch, Betula lenta, or made synthetically. Cool, clean, and slightly antiseptic, the flavor of wintergreen is familiar to us in toothpastes, lozenges, candy, and gum. It is also used in some medicines.
Traditional uses: Wintergreen, teaberry, checkerberry, or Green Mountain tea was called pockqueesegan by Lake Superior Chippewa, pahgezegun by the Saultaux Indians in Minnesota, and pollom (for the berries) by the eastern Delaware Indians. This tiny native herb was widely used by many different tribal groups as a cooling, antiseptic pain reliever, and for much more. Several different woodland plants are sometimes referred to as wintergreen, including pipsissewa, Chimaphila maculata, because they are green in winter and often used in similar ways medicinally. Yet true wintergreen is Gaultheria procumbens, found growing wild from Newfoundland to Manitoba and Minnesota, and southward to Georgia and Alabama.
American Indians traditionally used wintergreen leaf teas to treat headaches and stomachaches, kidney ailments, colds, sore throats, and fevers. The early spring roots were chewed to strengthen teeth and gums and prevent tooth decay. A strong tea (decoction) was used for external skin and sore muscle treatments and especially for relief of rheumatism.
Modern uses: Experiments prove that the essential oil of wintergreen is anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, and analgesic, and small amounts have delayed the onset of tumors. The essential oil in liniments and ointments provides relief from swollen muscles and joints and especially from sciatica (pain in the lower spine resulting from nerve pressure) and trigeminal neuralgia (pain affecting facial nerves). This is an effective remedy for rheumatic and arthritic problems. Wintergreen teas are also valuable to relieve colic and flatulence.
Cautions: The essential oil of wintergreen is highly toxic; absorbed through skin, it harms the liver and kidneys, except in the small amounts used in flavorings or liniments. People sensitive to aspirin should not take wintergreen internally. Do not use on the skin of young children.
Growth needs and propagation: Wintergreen favors a rich, acid woodland soil. It can thrive in shaded locations in the medicine wheel garden. Propagation is generally by seed and root division, following the traditional methods for both.
Companions: Wintergreen grows well with yarrow, yellow dock, pipsissewa, and Oregon holly grape.
Achillea millefolium
Asteraceae (sunflower or aster family)
The genus name of this rugged, lacy herb remembers the Greek hero Achilles, noted for his strength, who used this plant to heal wounds more than three thousand years ago during the Trojan War. The species name millefolium means “thousand leaves,” and the many fine dissections of these leaves do seem that numerous. The name yarrow comes from West Germanic and Old English origins; its meaning is obscure. Yarrow is a member of the huge Asteraceae (sunflower or aster family), which comes from the Latin word aster, meaning “star.” These family members are very different yet all have radiating ray flowers that seem to symbolize expanding stars.
Achillea embraces about a hundred species of aromatic perennial herbs native to northern temperate zones. The finely cut leaves are alternate and in basal rosettes. A. millefolium is a soft, fragrant perennial that will grow from one to three feet tall. This fine fernlike foliage is covered with silky or woolly hairs. The white blossoms appear in flat, tightly packed clusters atop the sturdy stems.
These plants will bloom from May through October in most gardens, making them cheerful additions. Each tiny individual flower has five petal-like rays, and each ray has three teeth at its tip. Yarrow has been hybridized into various blossom colors from pale to vivid pink, red, yellow, gold, and orange. Many gardeners have special cultivars that blossom in a bright range of colors. Variations in yarrow foliage are also interesting in garden hybrids. Yarrow has a broad geographical range. It grows all across Canada and the United States, and from Alaska, the Yukon, and the Aleutian Islands to Mexico.
Fern-leaf yarrow, A. filipendulina, is a stiff perennial herb that will grow from four to five feet tall. This is a favorite species in many gardens, as is woolly yarrow, A. tomentosa. There are many attractive species and varieties to choose from.
Traditional uses: Archaeological evidence suggests that yarrow has been associated with humans, and has grown for some sixty thousand years on every continent. The Chinese used yarrow sticks to cast the I Ching, an ancient method of divination. African cultures also used yarrow sticks for divination and fortune-telling. American Indian tribes in the Southwest used yarrow stems for divination and to create prayer feathers and prayer sticks.
The Illinois and Miami Indians used yarrow for wound dressings and to treat diarrhea and stomach problems. The Monta-gnais used this herb for colds and fevers, as did the Mohegan and Delaware Indians. The Iroquois and Micmac used yarrow for colds and fevers and in the sweat lodge. The Winnebago and Chippewa used the dried powdered yarrow to treat headaches, to clean cuts and wounds, and to treat toothaches.
The Navajo and Pueblo people used yarrow to treat stomach disorders and toothaches, as well as to treat burns, hemorrhoids, and for hair and scalp care. In some native communities yarrow was used to flavor foods and for its medicinal benefits. In many respects these herbal ways continue because they provide relief and actually work. Many tribes used yarrow as a birth control treatment in formula with selected other herbs, and exploration of these techniques led to our first modern birth control medications.
Yarrow was also used in medicine lodge rites. The Cheyenne Indians used yarrow infusions to treat coughs, colds, and nausea. The Menomini and Meskwaki Indians used fresh yarrow tops to treat eczema and children’s rashes. Many of the Great Lakes tribes dried yarrow to add to kinnikinnicks, or smoking mixtures. Yarrow was used as a smudge by many tribes.
Modern uses: Over a hundred biologically active compounds have been identified in yarrow. Experiments show that yarrow extracts are anti-inflammatory and help stop bleeding. Yarrow tea, made from the flowering plant, helps treat indigestion, colds, fevers, and even anorexia and internal bleeding.
The fresh leaves may be used as a poultice on sprains and swellings. Yarrow (dried) is one of the valuable “herbs of dreaming” and is sewn into eye masks and dream pillows along with mugwort, sage, lavender, and flaxseed. Yarrow is a favorite dye plant yielding a range of yellow to olive hues depending upon the mordants. Yarrow dries beautifully when cut early and hung upside down. It is used in herbal flower arrangements (both fresh and dried), and is used in a variety of cosmetic preparations for skin and hair.
Cautions: Large or frequent doses taken over a long period of time can be harmful. The plant may cause dermatitis to some with sensitive skin. Do not use during pregnancy.
Growth needs and propagation: Yarrow does best in full sun. It grows in most soil types. It is easily propagated by root division, and rarely by cuttings; seeds should give you blooming plants in the second year.
Companions: Yarrow is known as an “herb of strength” that strengthens anything growing nearby. This makes yarrow a fine companion plant in any garden. It grows very well with sage, sweetgrass, blue flag, and wild garlic and onions—perhaps making them even sweeter and more aromatic.
Rumex crispus
Polygonaceae (buckwheat family)
The species name, crispus, means “crisped or curled” and accurately describes this plant’s curly leaf edges, but the original meaning of Rumex is obscure. Curly dock, narrow dock, or common sorrel are some of the regional names for this powerful healing herb.
Perhaps twenty species of dock are found across North America and some of them are Eurasian introduced species. All have a long history of food and medicinal uses. The juice from their crushed leaves will relieve irritations from stinging nettles as well as some insect and spider bites. Shades of bright green and yellow dyes are obtained from these roots and leaves. Bitter or broad-leaved dock, R. obtusifolius, is especially common along roadsides and in meadows.
Sheep-sorrel, R. acetosella, a diminutive relative in this same family, is one of the major herbs in the old Ojibwa cancer formula known as essiac.
Traditional uses: American Indians used all plant parts in various seasons for foods and health care needs. It is fascinating to see how readily and widely native herbalists and families adopted the uses of this plant, long considered an introduced European herb. In the mid-1880s Hoffman noted that the Ojibwa used the pounded roots poulticed on skin sores and wounds. The roots and seeds were considered laxatives, purgatives, and diuretics. The young green leaves were stewed for a spinachlike vegetable among many tribes.
The carrotlike, yellowish-brown taproots anchor these rugged perennials in almost all soils. A slender, grooved stalk rises to almost three feet tall by midsummer, supporting many branching, erect, tiny green flowers. These ripen by late summer into three-winged grains turning golden amber, then brown. These are roasted and ground fine into a delicious buckwheatlike flour for hot cereals, soups, breads, and ash cakes. Pressed into patties with herbs and raw eggs, these make memorable grilled veggie burgers. The large lance-shaped green leaves are steamed and sprinkled with vinegar. The fresh green leaves also make excellent wound dressings and can relieve skin rashes and irritations.
Modern uses: Today herbalists rely on yellow dock roots in tinctures and teas to take as blood purifiers for toxic skin conditions like acne, psoriasis, and eczema. This herb also can increase iron absorption and help our bodies with fat metabolism. The an-thraquinones curb ringworm.
Cautions: Both curly dock and sheep-sorrel should be used in moderation as they can prove to be poisonous in large doses. Their high oxalic acid content can bind and eliminate calcium from our bodies, and their tannin content can cause stomach upset and constipation.
Growth needs and propagation: Yellow dock will grow in most soil, and in full sun or partial shade—nearly anywhere. It propagates readily from seed and root cuttings following standard procedures.
Companions: Yellow dock grows well with yarrow, strawberry, poke, and most other plants.
Yucca glauca
Agavaceae (agave family)
Yucca was misnamed by John Gerarde, an English physician, in the 1600s, as it was mistaken for the vegetable yucca. Like other botanical misnomers, the name has stuck. The species name, glauca, means “whitened with a bloom;” the leaves are covered with a whitish, waxy film.
Yucca is a big family of striking plants, with about forty species native to North America. They grow primarily in the warmer regions of the South, where they are often cultivated. There are a few hardy species in the North.
These perennials grow in clumps radiating out from basal rosettes above woody rootstocks. Abundant, long, bayonet-like, waxy green leaves sometimes have whitish margins. Large flowers cluster along stout, spirelike stalks extending well above the leaves. These bell-shaped creamy-white flowers bloom from May through July, then ripen into long, green oval pods that become woody when mature and open to release numerous flat black seeds. All plant parts are valuable, but principally the large roots were used medicinally and for hair care.
Soapweed, Yucca glauca, is also known as beargrass, amole, Spanish bayonet, dagger plant, and Adam’s needle (referring to these sharp-pointed leaves). The Lakota call it hupestola (sharp-pointed stem); the Pawnee call it chakida-kahtsu; the Omaha and Ponca call it duwaduwahi; and the Blackfeet name is eksiso-ke. This plant grows wild across the Great Plains regions, especially favoring the sandy areas.
Traditional uses: The Blackfeet and other Plains tribes boiled soapweed roots in water to make a tonic to prevent hair loss. This also served as an anti-inflammatory for poulticing sprains and breaks. Young emerging blossoms and new seedpods were also edible foods for many tribes. The Lakota made a strong root tea to drink for stomachache. When this was mixed with a tea of the roots of the prickly pear cactus, it made a valued childbirth remedy.
The blue yucca, or banana yucca, Y. baccata, is found throughout the desert Southwest, and the Joshua tree, Y. brevifolia, also provided medicines, foods, and soapy cleansers. Ancient fibers from these species have been found as yucca cordage, belts, rope ladders, cradle lashings, and sandals at Bandolier National Historic Park and other prehistoric sites in the Southwest.
As the name soapweed implies, fresh or dry yucca roots are pounded and thrashed in water to make a sudsy lather for scalp and hair. Zuni, Cochiti, and Jemez Pueblo men and women wash their hair with it before ceremonial dances, as do many other Indians. They take great pride in the healthy shine it gives their black hair, plus the yucca treatments are considered to strengthen the hair. Pueblo potters used yucca-fiber brushes to draw their classic designs on clay pots, especially at Acoma Pueblo.
Modern uses: Yucca tea provides valuable anti-inflammatory relief for arthritic pains according to Michael Moore, a folk medicine practitioner. He maintains that similar teas also provide relief from prostate inflammations.
Growth needs and propagation: Yucca prefers sandy, loamy soil with good drainage and open exposure to the sun and wind. Propagation is easily made from the seeds, offsets (new young plants), and cuttings of stems, rhizomes, or roots in late summer, fall, or winter. follow standard procedures.
Soapweed is an attractive, robust evergreen plant that often blooms on Memorial Day in southern regions. It is cultivated across the country. Roots of mature plants can grow to be twenty feet long. These plants have stunning cultivars, especially rosea, which is noted for its rose-tinted flowers.
Companions: Yucca plants are good companions for yarrow, prickly pear, Oregon holly grape, strawberry, and tobacco.