Mountain Herbs

YARROW

(First Appeared in The Mountain Laurel, August, 1983 issue.)

Yarrow is one of the most common and taken for granted weeds in this area. It's everywhere! Pastures are covered with it. Roadsides have their share as well.

Yarrow grows to be about three feet tall, in average to dry soil, usually in full sunlit places. It has flat topped heads of tiny white flower clusters and finely divided leaves, slightly "fuzzy" instead of slick. The foliage is almost "lacy" like that of a carrot top.

To appreciate Yarrow, you have to know its heritage. Yarrow is one of the oldest herbs known. Its scientific name, Achilla Millefolium, came from an ancient Greek doctor called Achillos, who is said to have cured a seriously wounded warrior called Telph with it. Its stems and leaves have been used to stop bleeding by pressing them on the wound. Another source states it was used by Achilles to stop bleeding of his wounded men in the Trojan Wars. It is now known that pressure applied to a wound will stop bleeding. It may have simply been the pressure applied instead of the Yarrow that helped.

By the late middle ages, another use for Yarrow was popular. Herb pillows were made for various reasons, using a variety of herbs. A young lady of those days would make a small pillow and stuff it with Yarrow. Then at night she would sleep on it, saying this rhyme before going to sleep:

Oh, sweet herb of Venus tree,

Thy true name be Yarrow.

If I sleep I hope to dream,

Of my true love by `Morrow.

Supposedly, the lass would know the name of her "true love" upon awakening. I haven't tried it or know of anyone who has, so I can't testify if it works or not. It probably won't harm anyone who would like to try it, with the possible exception of those who are prone to hay fever.

JEWEL WEED (First Appeared in The Mountain Laurel, September, 1983 issue.)

This is a weed/wild flower that grows in abundance along road banks and just about everywhere else in the mountains. Wherever you find them growing, there will be a thicket of them, taller than your knees. The plant is a succulent annual ands dies back immediately at the slightest fall frost.

In the summer, they are covered with beautiful blooms. There are two varieties; one that blooms yellow and one that blooms bright orange. Both varieties have pods which when mature burst suddenly upon being touched, hence the common name of "Touch Me Not."

The blooms resemble snapdragons but are suspended from the plant on delicate little thread-like supports.

Being beautiful isn't all there is to the Jewel Weed. If you have ever accidentally brushed against the Stinging Nettle Plant, you know the results. Immediately the spot will start itching and burning and may even blister if you are particularly sensitive. Curiously, as if Mother Nature planned it, Jewel Weed usually grows near Stinging Nettles and it said if you immediately rub the foliage of the Jewel Weed on the spot, the itching and stinging will go away. The American Indians also used it as a cure for poison oak by squeezing the juice from the Jewel Weed on the affected area. As far as I know, it has never been dried or used for other purposes.

While it can be a pesky plant in your garden, you still have to admire its beauty in the wild.

5/10/99 - Editor's Note: I received the following e-mail today and thought it would add to the information about Jewel Weed:

Under your web site you state that to your knowledge that jewell weed is not dried and used as a cure for poison oak. I know a lady who puts it in a blender and the freezes the liquid in ice trays to use as a cure for poison oak.

[We, at The Mountain Laurel, have never tried this and caution those of you that would.]

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