It is just past the heighth of summer and plants are flourishing. As an herbalist, it is important for me to have connection to the plants that I use as medicine. It gives me a relationship with the plant and helps me better understand the medicine a plant has to offer. In this blog and the next, I would like to share with you some Chinese medicinals that are plants within my garden.
XUAN FU HUA : This flower dissolves hot or cold phlegm and in the lung and helps stomach qi descend.
ZHI MU - This soft whispy plant with it's long seasonal lasting tall and astute purple flower has it's medicine in it's spreading rhizomes. It can clear deficient and excess heat, nourish yin, generate fluid and moisten dryness. What a clever mother.
DAN SHEN -- 'red ginseng' -- It's flower is purple, but it's roots are red!. These blood roots move, cool and nourish the blood and calm the spirit.
Another of dan shen after her flowering time.
BAI SHAO : 'white peony' -- I forgot to photograph it's early spring white flower. Here is the foliage. And it is her roots that nourish the blood and the liver, helps preserve the yin when there is abnormal sweating. Also a great friend of gan cao, licorice root, to relieve muscle spasms, pain and numbness.
LIAN QIAO -- This is a wee baby shrub that puts out long whispy yellow branches at the first signs of spring. It is the fruit, or seed of this plant that has anti-biotic properties that clear heat and eliminate toxins.
HUO XIANG -- 'aromatic bean leaf' -- Ahhh, yes, aromatic it is!! Just rubbing your fingers on it's leaves will leave it's scent imprinted in your herbal minded memory. It's medicine is what the picture shows, the aerial, above ground parts of the plant. It's aromatic properties dispel damp and summer-heat/damp, relieves nausea and vomiting. It also has anti-fungal properties if used as a topical soak.
This is the beginning. There are more plants to be featured soon!! Medicine can be beautiful!
