Clinopodium
Clinopodium is another plant that is often considered a wild edible, but all of those called “calamint” are generally used medicinally, as well.
Clinopodium georgianum (Georgia Calamint) is native to my region.
Dioscorides wrote of Clinopodium under two names:
Clinopodium is a little shrub full of shoots two feet high that grows on rocks, with leaves similar to serpyllum, and flowers like the feet of a bed, set around at distances, similar to marrubium. The herb (and a decoction of it) is taken as a drink for the bites of venomous creatures, convulsions, hernia, and slow painful urination. A decoction (taken as a drink for many days) draws out the menstrual flow, is an abortifacient, and casts off hanging warts. It stops discharges of the bowels boiled down two thirds and taken as a drink (in wine for the non-feverish, but for the feverish with water). It is also called cleollicum, ocimoides, or zopyrum.
Pycnocomon has leaves like eruca but rough, thick, and sharper, a four-square stalk, and a flower like that of basil. The seed is like marrubium; the root black, round, pale, shaped like a little apple, smelling earthy. It grows in rocky places. As much as a teaspoon of a decoction of the seed (taken as a drink) is able to cause nightmares. Applied with polenta it dissolves oedemas and extracts thorns and splinters. The leaves are applied to dissolve tubercles [growths] and boils or inflammatory tumours. The root loosens the intestines and voids bile. Two teaspoonfuls are given in honey and water.
Plants for A Future lists three varieties: Clinopodium chinense, Clinopodium umbrosum, Clinopodium vulgare - Wild Basil. Of Clinopodium vulgare, it states:
Synonyms: Calamintha clinopodium, Calamintha vulgaris
Medicinal use of Wild Basil: The plant is aromatic, astringent, cardiotonic, carminative, diaphoretic and expectorant. An infusion of the plant helps to overcome weak digestion.
Comptonia, Sweetfern
Two varieties of Sweetfern have documented use in herbal medicine: Comptonia peregrina - Sweetfern, Comptonia peregrina asplenifolia - Sweet Fern
Comptonia peregrina (Sweetfern) is native to my region.
These plants are actually not ferns, at all. They are shrubs that were a popular tea substitute in early America.
Medicinal Plants of the Southern Appalachian Mountains tells us:
American Indians made frequent use of the delightfully aromatic leaves of sweetfern: they were crushed and inhaled to relieve headaches, burned in religious ceremonies for purification, and used to sprinkle water on fire-heated rocks to create steam. Strong infusions of the leaf are a traditional remedy to treat poison ivy.
Bradford Angier wrote:
A strong enough leaf tea was believed to ease both stomach and abdominal cramps and diarrhea. The complete perennial, so brewed, provided a remedy for paroxysms of acute abdominal pain, perhaps localized and caused by spasms, obstructions or twisting of the colon. Care had to be taken, of course, not to be misled 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 at 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 weakened by fever, and its aromatic pleasantness was used to make such early remedies as cough medicines 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 the Indians for providing a hot moist poultice to be held against the cheek to ease the agony of a toothache.
… No less authority than the U.S. Dispensatory stated that a decoction of the medicinal be used to treat diarrhea, while other authorities recognized its value with difficulties arising from poison ivy and the like
Plants for A Future states:
Medicinal use of Sweet Fern: 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.
Resources of The Southern Fields and Forests tells us:
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.
King’s American Dispensatory of 1898 states:
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.
Peterson Field Guides Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants tells us:
Leaf tea astringent, folk remedy for vomiting blood, diarrhea, dysentery, leukorrhea, rheumatism. American Indians used leaf tea as a beverage, wash for poison ivy and bleeding.
This article is an excerpt from
Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast An Herbalist's Guide
Read about Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast An Herbalist's Guide: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/06/medicinal-shrubs-and-woody-vines-of.html
Available for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2T4Y5L6: by Judson Carroll
His New book is:
Read About: The Medicinal Weeds and Grasses of the American Southeast
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Look Up: The Medicinal Trees of the American South, An Herbalist's Guide
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The Herbs and Weeds of Fr. Johannes Künzle:
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Author: Judson Carroll. Judson Carroll is an Herbalist from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
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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.
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