This
not a fern, but is so often confused with ferns that I though I
should mention it. Sweet Fern is also a very useful and interesting
medicinal herb. Sweet fern is native to North America and its
history of use begins with the Native Americans.
Tis
Mal Crow tells us of the Muskogee tradition (formulas omitted – buy
his book):
Sweet
Fern Leaves are used as a refrigerant against fevers. They can be
used to make a tea, or the fresh leaves can be crushed and placed
against the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet or the
forehead.
Sweet
Fern root is used to make a hair rinse, more specifically for hair
damaged by permanents, treated hair, for people that are losing their
hair, and in a mixture for itching scalps.
Sweet
Fern is especially good for babies with cradle cap, older people with
really scaly scalps, or other people with reactions to a food
allergy, or some other contaminate that causes scaling and itching of
the scalp. Whenever there are sores, Sweet Fern is preferred. It
will heal.
A
leaf tea is used externally to treat poison ivy rash.
A
strong leaf tea is used for relief from dysentery, diarrhea and
intestinal cramping.
For
boils, Sweet Fern is mashed and mixed with water to make a thin
paste.
A
very strong tea is used as a mouthwash for gum problems, periodontal
disease and mouth sores.
The
leaves are used to make a strong tea, and the tea is added to a
lukewarm or cool bath for people who have convulsions. If possible,
they can be immersed in the bath while the convulsion is occurring.
A cool towel soaked in the tea can be used around the chest and
abdomen of a person who is experiencing convulsions.
A
tea or tincture of the leaves can be used for food poisoning or a
nervous stomach.
Bradford
Angier wrote:
The
beverages, both potent and delicate, brewed from the fern-like leaves
of this fragrant wild tea were used in a number of ways by Indians
and settlers. They were taken internally and also used as a wash for
poison ivy rashes, blisters and sores. In fact it was believed that,
if the wash was used for these soon enough after exposure, it would
dissolve and wash away the irritating substances and prevent the
trouble which was transferred not only by direct contact with the
irritant but indirectly as from the fur of dogs and cats which had
passed through an ivy bed.
A
strong enough leaf tea was believed to ease both stomach and
intestinal cramps and diarrhea. The complete perennial, so brewed,
provided a remedy for paroxysms of acute abdominal pain, perhaps
localized and caused by spasms, obstruction, or twisting of the
colon. Care had to be taken, of course, not to be mislead by
appendicitis, characterized by extreme sensitivity in the right lower
abdomen, and in the early days hopefully treated instead by cold
compresses.
Such
tea drunk in childbirth was believed to help physically in the
delivery of the baby. Supplies of frost-wilted leaves were gathered
in the fall, dried, and kept throughout the cold months for all such
purposes.
It
was also drunk for a stimulating effect especially by convalescents
recovering from a fever, and its aromatic pleasantness was used to
make such early remedies as cough syrups taste better. It was one of
the many arthritis treatments, both as a beverage and for hot moist
applications to ease pain in the afflicted part. In this regard, the
leaves were simmered by Indians for providing a hot moist poultice to
be held against the cheek to ease the agony of a toothache.
Also
used as a closets and drawer scent and moth replant. The aromatic
shrub was said to repel mosquitoes and other winged biters when
spread damply over the dwindling coals of a campfire or smoked by
someone on the go.
No
less an authority than the US Dispensatory stated that a decoction of
the medicinal be used to treat diarrhea, while other authorities
recognized its value in difficulties arising from poison ivy and the
like.
America’s
first herbal, “Towards and American Materia Medica”, was written
while our nation was still a British colony. It briefly mentions
Sweet Fern, misidentifying it (as was common at the time) with a
similar European herb:
The
Liquidambar asplenifoliumf of Linnaeus is well known by the name of
Sweet-Fern. It has often been found useful in diarrhoea. Other
virtues have been ascribed to it… Liquidambar asplenifolium. Colden
was informed, that the Indians chew the root of this vegetable, with
a view to stop haemorrhages in recent wounds. This effect of the
Sweet-Fern may, perhaps, meet with some credit from those who have
witnessed the wonderful powers of small doses of the preparations of
lead, in diminishing and stopping, almost immediately after their
reception into the stomach, haemorrhages from the uterus, intestines,
&c.
Sweet
Fern was much used by America’s first true school of herbal
medicine, the Ecclectics – from the American Ecclectic Materia
Medica:
Sweet
Fern is mildly astringent and somewhat tonic. It is used in New
England in diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera infantum, and in cases of
general relaxation, and in debilitated states of the bowels. In
these diseases it forms a grateful astringent, tonic, and aromatic
drink, prepared by adding sugar and cream to the decoction. It is
acceptable to the stomach and agreeable to the taste.
Resources
of The Southerns Fields and Forests states:
FERN
BUSH; SWEET FERN, (Comptonia asplenifolia, Ait.) Mts. of
North Carolina and northward. An aromatic astringent used by
Barton and others as a pleasant drink in the summer
complaints of children, Shoepf says on the authority of
Colden, that chewing the root will check a spitting of
blood, and that it is useful in rachitis and the debility
following fevers. -Griffith
Resources
of The Southern Fields and Forests, like many such books of the era,
included advertisements in the final pages. The advertisements of
Patent Medicine companies (etc.) helps offset the cost of printing.
Interestingly, one such advertisement includes an offering of Sweet
Fern:]
Comptonia
Asplenifolia [Sweet Fern). — Tonic, astringent and
alterative. It possesses all the properties of the tonic and
astringent balsams, and is useful in dysentery, diarrhea,
hemoptysis and lucorrhea. Barton recommends it for summer
com- plaints of children.
Fluid Extract — Dose: 1/2 to 1
dram.
King’s
Medical Dispensatory of 1898 gives a comprehensive listing for this
herb:
Botanical
name: Comptonia peregrina
The
plant and especially the leaves and tops of Comptonia asplenifolia,
Aiton (Myrica asplenifolia, Linné; Myrica Comptonia, De Candolle).
Nat.
Ord.—Myricaceae.
COMMON
NAMES: Sweet fern, Meadow fern, Ferngale.
Botanical
Source.—Sweet fern is a low, indigenous shrub, with a long,
horizontal root, and growing from 2 to 4 feet high, the main stem
being covered with a rusty, brown bark, which becomes reddish in the
branches, and white-downy in the young shoots. The leaves are
numerous, on short peduncles, from 3 to 4 inches in length, ½ inch
broad, alternate, linear-lanceolate, sinuate-pinnatifid, resembling
the leaves of the spleenwort fern, brown, rather downy on the under
side, shining on the upper. The stipules in pairs and acuminate. The
flowers are green, monoecious, amentaceous, appearing before the
leaves; barren ones in long, erect, cylindrical, loosely imbricated
catkins, terminal and lateral, with deciduous, 1-flowered bracts; the
fertile ones in ovate, densely imbricated catkins, situated below the
barren ones, with 1-flowered bracts. Stamens 6, adhering in pairs.
Sepals 6, larger than the bracts; styles 2, capillary. The fruit is a
small, ovate, brown, 1-celled nut (L-W.).
History.—This
plant is found growing in thin, sandy soils, or dry, rocky woods,
from Maine to Kentucky, flowering in May. The whole plant possesses a
spicy, aromatic odor, especially when bruised, and an aromatic,
astringent, faintly bitterish taste. The whole herb is used, and
imparts its virtues to water or alcohol. The leaves have been used in
the rural districts of New York state as a substitute for tea.
Chemical
Composition.—H. K. Bowman (Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1869, p. 194), found
the leaves to contain 8.2 per cent of tannin, corroborated by Charles
G. Manger, who, in 1894, made a complete analysis of both the rhizome
and the leaves of Myrica asplenifolia. He found the amount of tannin
to vary with the season; dried January leaves containing 7.06 per
cent, July leaves 10.28 per cent. Tannin in the dried rhizome reached
a maximum of 6 per cent in a sample collected in August. Starch was
not found in the leaves, but the rhizome contained 8.24 per cent. By
distilling the leaves with water, Mr. Manger isolated a small amount
of an aromatic volatile oil, which was liable to resinify upon
exposure to the air. R. T. Chiles, in 1873, found gallic acid in the
leaves, the usual plant constituents, and a body resembling saponin.
Peacock subsequently could detect traces only of gallic acid in a
January specimen of the rhizome, and none at all in a specimen
collected in June (Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1892).
Action,
Medical Uses, and Dosage.—Tonic, astringent, and alterative. Used
in diarrhoea, dysentery, hemoptysis, leucorrhoea, rheumatism,
debility succeeding fevers, and in rachitis. A decoction of it is
very useful in the summer complaints of children, when given as an
auxiliary. A pillow of the leaves is beneficial to rachitic children,
and they may be used as a fomentation in contusions and rheumatism.
Dose of the decoction, from 1 to 4 fluid ounces, 3 or 4 times a day.
Plants
for A Future states:
Sweet
fern was employed medicinally by several native North American Indian
tribes who used it especially as a poultice to treat a variety of
complaints. It is still used for most of the same purposes in modern
herbalism. The leaves are astringent, blood purifier, expectorant and
tonic. A tea made from the leaves and flowering tops is used as a
remedy for diarrhoea, headache, fevers, catarrh, vomiting of blood,
rheumatism etc. The infusion has also been used to treat ringworm.
The leaves have also been used as a poultice for toothaches, sprains
etc. A cold water infusion of the leaves has been used externally to
counter the effect of poison ivy and to bathe stings, minor
haemorrhages etc. The leaves are harvested in early summer and dried
for later use.
This article is an excerpt from
Medicinal Ferns and Fern Allies, an Herbalist's Guide https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/11/medicinal-ferns-and-fern-allies.html
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Disclaimer
The information on this site is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing on this site has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I am not a doctor. The US government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine and their is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm just a guy who studies herbs. I am not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write is accurate or true! I can tell you what herbs have "traditionally been used for." I can tell you my own experience and if I believe an herb helped me. I cannot, nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use any herb I, or anyone else, mentions you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, sensitivity or underlying condition that no one else shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to read my blog you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices and not to blame me for anything, ever.
