Show 261: Spikemoss and Meadowsweet

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The name down to the clan, the clan to the.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Hey, y'all, welcome this week's show. Today, we're going to
talk about a couple of minicial herbs that are considered
to be shrubs. First entry is going to be very short.
It's spike moss. Now, there's only one variety of spike
moss that I have found that has documented use in
herbal medicine, and that's a slogenilla. I'm going to assume

(01:59):
as is pronounced tammar tamariskina, tamariskina, probably Selaginella tamoriskina. But
there are four spike mosses native to my region. These
are all the Selaginella family. That's s C l A

(02:19):
g I n E l l A. We have spiny
spike moss and meadows spike moss and rock spike moss,
and two that have been naturalized, treelet spike moss and
Krous's spike moss. So we had a lot of spike moss,
but I've only found documented use on the tamariskina. That's

(02:45):
a hard one for me to say. T A M
A r I S yeah, s C I n A
tamariskina anyway, more than likely just hasn't been a lot
of research done into the other varieties of spike moss,
so we're going to have to start probably doing a

(03:06):
little cautious experimentation with the spike moss family, the selaginelle family,
see what we can come up with. Botany in a
Day says that medicinally the plant can be simmered in
milk and used externally or internally for spider or snake bites.
It's very interesting. So if we can use these externally,

(03:30):
obviously we could experiment with the different spike mosses and
see how they react. Now, unfortunately, if it's useful for
spider and snake bites, we don't necessarily want to be
bidden by spiders and snakes, and if we are, we
want to go with something we know is very effective.

(03:52):
So this one maybe a little hard to experiment within
that way. I think what I would start by doing
is maybe try to use it with ant bytes. You know,
ants have a venom. We could try that, and Botany
and Day did not specify it was a necrotic, necrotizing venom,
maybe a b venom, you know, something like that yellow

(04:13):
jacket steaing hornets or nettles nettles have a very similar
venom to both the ants and bees, so we could
try that and see we'll see how that goes. So
the only other entry I have on selaginella and it
is the mariskeena. It's from Plants for Future and it
says the whole plant is a stringent and hemostatic. A

(04:37):
decoction of it is used in the treatment of traumatic bleeding,
hemiatopsis in pulmonary disease, gastro intestinal bleeding, metaaga, hematuria, persistence
of postpartum local discharge, rectropleur lapse, and leucalrhea. So we
know the tamariscina is very aus stringent and stops bleeding.

(05:02):
It has both the stringent and almost stiptich type properties.
So we don't know about this use for snake and
spider bites, but we could experiment with the other varieties
of spike moss and see if it has the same
astringency and ability to stop bleeding. Now I would start

(05:23):
with these using them again externally, and then venture if
they've seen to be interchangeable with the tamaraskeena externally, then
maybe consider using them internally for internal forms of bleeding
or discharge. But you want to check the toxicity on

(05:46):
each of these, you would want to go to your
state's botanical website, go to an extension agency wherever you
can find someone that has a database of toxic plants
and make sure. But well, I don't know of any
toxicity of any of these, but we would have to see.
Now we'll move on to one that's a little more

(06:07):
widespread and has a lot more documented historical use, and
it is Spyria or meadow sweet. Several varieties of meadow
sweet have been used in herbal medicine. There are five
that are shrub form that are native to my region.
I'm not going to get into all these, but they
do mainly grow in the mountains and foothills and such.

(06:30):
There's one specifically native to Virginia that's Spyria Virginiana. There's
one specific to Japan which has been naturalized, brought in
and planted by people, and that's Spyria japonica or Japanese
meadow sweet. These are often used as ornamental plants, but
they're really quite useful. King's American Dispensatory of eighteen ninety

(06:54):
eight says this is a beautiful shrub common in low
grounds and moist meadows throughout the United States, flowering from
May to August. The herbaceous part is used, especially the
leaves and bark. It has an odor somewhat resembling that
of black tea. It is very stringent and has a
bitter taste, which properties it imparts to boiling water and infusion.

(07:15):
It appears to contain tannic and gallic acid, gallic acid,
volet oil, and a bitterative extract. The fruit is persistent,
remaining through the winter and flourishing food for snowbirds. Under
actions and addicinal uses. It says the oh, this is
a common day of the time. It was called hardback.

(07:39):
I don't know why we call it meadow sweet, but anyway,
hardback has been found an excellent astringent in summer complaints
of children. I've had trouble finding in a lot of
the old books they talk about summer complaints. It seems
to be sort of a diarrhea usually accompanied by fever.

(07:59):
That might have them more common with bad water in
the summertime, when pathogens were more likely to be present
in water. That's the best I can figure. Maybe some
are sensitive to heat, but it does seem to be
something more along the line with warm weather pathonogens that

(08:23):
would be in water when you know people were drinking
out of streams, or you know the water wasn't always good.
So I said, it's also good for diarrhea and other
diseases requiring this class of remedies. In other words, as
stringent and is less offensive to the stomach than most
agents of this kind. It is likewise proved efficient as

(08:44):
a tonic in cases of debility that would be digestive weakness,
convalescences from diarrhea and dysentery, et cetera, and to improve
digestions functions. Digestive functions, passive hemorrhages, and meneraja have been
treated with it. While well as an injection, good results
have been obtained from its use in gleat and lucoreea.

(09:04):
We would call that more of a douche an injection
that can be a little confusing for people. It is
generally given an infusion, the dose being one or two
fluid ounces. A very elegant extract non inferior to CETACHEW
may be made by carefully evaporating the infusion by percolation,

(09:24):
and which may be given a dose of two to
twenty grains. A tink sure well representing the virtues of Spyrea,
may be prepared from eight ounces of the fresh leaves
and bark to one pint of seventy six percent alcohol. Okay,
a few things we need to talk about there now.
First of all, that's a standard tincture, but it is
using seventy six percent alcohol. When you go to your

(09:48):
liquor store or wherever you buy your alcohol, most of
what's on the shelf is forty percent alcohol or eighty proof.
To buy seventy six percent alcohol, you may be able
to find a stronger version of ever Clear, and if
you can, that's going to be your best and best option.

(10:08):
Otherwise you're going to have to go through a pharmaceutical distributor.
That's the only way you're going to get seventy six
percent grain alcohol. We're not talking isoprobal or meth or
anything like that. We're talking ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, the
kind you can actually consume and it won't kill you.
It's not antifreeze that kind of thing. You may be

(10:29):
able to get it from a pharmaceutical distributor or a
chemist distributor, somebody that specifically works with pharmacists or chemists.
Best waited to do that usually is to talk with
the chemistry department or a pharmacy department if you have
to e haven't have one at a local college or
university technical college, something like that, and see if they

(10:54):
can give you the name of a distributor. Tell them
what you're doing. You know, they may be a little
hesitant talk with you if they think you're you know,
cooking math or something. You know, I mean, you know,
these certain things they sell can be misused very easily,
so not necessarily math, but more like fentanyl and such,
you know, But anyway, you may be able to get

(11:18):
it that way. If you have a friend who is
a pharmacist and has a pharmacist license, you may be
able to get it that way. Always good to make
friends with a pharmacists. They tend to be really great people.
You know. Used to work on drug store, just about
every pharmacist I met was just a total odd ball, eccentric, brilliant,
fun to hang out with. You know. I really enjoyed

(11:42):
getting to all the pharmacists that I got to work with.
I got to work with several dozen, many on opposite
polar ends of the political spectrum, really unique takes on life,
good tastes in music. And I don't know why, but
farm pharmaceuticals tend to pharmacists, not pharmaceuticals, but actually being

(12:03):
a pharmacist tends to draw some of the kind of
odd balls into the realm. So good to make friends
with your pharmacists, but more than likely now. Of course,
there's another option. You could, of course, make the alcohol yourself,
which is completely illegal to distill. You can make beer
and wine legally, but if you want to distill it,

(12:24):
which means just take the water out of it through
the process of evaporation and condensation, the federal government says
that's illegal, which is insane stupid. I mean, in the
history of America, look, most of the colonists who fought
in the Revolution didn't give a crap about tea. They
did not care that the British put a tax on tea.

(12:45):
They weren't drinking tea. They were making and selling whiskey
and brandy and rum, et cetera. And the British one
tacks that our nation of America is only here because
of moons. That's why the majority and the best of
the fighters in the American Revolution were Scott's Irish moonshiners

(13:08):
and fur trappers and frontiersmen, all of whom had a
little steal and made their own liquor, whether it's peach,
brandy or corn liquor, and sold it as part of
their living. And they fought the British, and many of
them gave their lives to give us this nation. And
just as soon as they had, George Washington turned the

(13:29):
army against them and what they called the Whiskey Rebellion
because our federal government wanted to tax and regulate liquor,
and one of the most truly if history was taught
as it was, that would be an action of such
utter betrayal that it would undermine the legacy of Washington

(13:52):
and the political leaders of the time, because the very
men who had just given their lives or risked their
lives and their families and their livelihoods to give us
this nation were then turned on by our own government
because of the very freedoms for which they fought. So anyway,
I could talk about that for a while, but yes,

(14:16):
if you are able to legally to steal alcohol, you
could make your own. So probably your best choice, your
best bet where you live in the United States is
to get the highest proof of ever clear you can get.
I don't do that. I make all my teinctuers which

(14:36):
is forty percent alcohol, and don't worry about it. But
there is one other thing they mentioned that it's called
a percolation. Now, in the era, this was well into
the sixties, actually even the seventies. In most places, before
our modern pharmaceutical companies patented every drug, pharmacists made most

(15:00):
things in house. They were compounding pharmacies. They would take
the raw ingredients and make them into pills and et cetera,
capsules and syrups and all that. In really to about
nineteen forty or so, a lot of those were in

(15:20):
plant form. They were not refined chemicals. They were in
plant form. And one of the most reliable ways of
making a pharmaceutical grade tincture, essentially is to make a percolation. Now,
up until the sixties or so, you could buy from

(15:43):
a pharmaceutical supplier's called a percolating cone or a percolation cone. Well,
this is is basically a large glass funnel. It has
sort of a cap at the bottom that could be loosened,
so it gives a very slow drip you would take

(16:03):
and it's open at the other end. You know, it's
just basically a big glass funnel, but it's more conical
in shape. It's more like a big glass bottle with
the end cut off. And you can actually make your
own percolator by doing it that way. Just be very
careful you don't cut yourself. I learned how to do
this in herb school years ago. We would take these

(16:24):
big glass bottles with a screw top lid I'm not
sure exactly or cap, I mean, I'm not exactly sure
what they were originally for and use a glass cutter
or you know, some cordage that was soaked in kerosene
and wax, I think, basically, and wrap it around there
and if you like that, it will heat the glass
or weak it in one point and you kind of

(16:45):
tap it and break it off smoothly. That fails more
often than it works. But you take a glass cutter
and you cut the base off of this bottle and
then it goes into a stand, which makes it stand
upright with the cap down. And that now the now
open end the base of the jar that you cut
off bottle again, I'm and say up and it's perfectly upright,

(17:09):
perfectly straight, so you know it's not tilting in any
way whatsoever. You got to take a level you're going
to make sure it's right. Then, of course you're going
to want to take some fine memory cloth and smooth
off the cut edges so you don't cut yourself while
you're using it. That's very important because you can really
get cut on those things. Then you take a specific
weight of dry herb and pack it in there, put

(17:33):
the cap completely on so it doesn't drip, and put
a specific amount of very high proof alcohol. This is
where we're going to want to have this pharmaceutical grade
stuff or like the very highest proof drinking alcohol you
can get. In some places you've got I think you
can even get like a nightie proof ever clear. I
don't think I can get that North Carolina, but in

(17:55):
some places you can. So pack your herbs in there
and then you pour in the alcohol and it's a
specific ratio. It's a specific volume of herbs to volume
of liquor, and cover it and let's sit for usually
every night, twenty four hours. I mean, it completely totally

(18:17):
saturates the herb. Some actually call it for much longer
than that. I mean, the herbs might be sitting in
there for weeks. It just depends on what you're using.
Then you very gradually open the valve at the bottom.
If you've got an actual pharmaceutical percolation cone, it has
a little screw valve. What we had was a little

(18:39):
bottle cap and you would slowly open it until you
were getting a certain number of drips per minute.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
That as the.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Alcohol percolates through the substrate or the herbs have the
dry herbs after thoroughly soaking in and extracting their properties,
that drip and the you know, eighteen nineties through nineteen

(19:13):
twenties nineteen thirties was one of the most accurate measures
of dosing you could have. You knew exactly how strong
your tinctures sex essentially was, your percolation was, and the
number of drops was how you would dose things. So

(19:34):
we don't do that much anymore as erbalists. We just
make tinctures. We use medicine droppers. But when back when
pharmacists were herbalists and they were making their own medicines
in their pharmacies, that is how they especially if you're
using something really dangerous like digitalis, you needed to know

(19:59):
exactly how strong a drop of that digitalist was, and
percolations were among the best way to do that. I
think I may have left half one step in the process.
I have to go back and look at my notes.
Sometimes this is something I haven't messed with in ten
or fifteen years or twenty. It's been quite a while,

(20:21):
But if you are a practicing clinical herbalist, it may
be something worth looking into. Now these days, we also
have hydraulic presses that can be used for tincture extracts
strictly medicinal Reto's company he sells some of these hydraulic presses,

(20:43):
certainly more expensive, but probably more often used now than percolation,
especially since it's so hard to buy those old cones.
You will have to learn to make your own, and
you're gonna get cut in the process. So anyway, just
to clear that up, because it isn't you know, I
don't think most people realize how technical herbal medicine can be,

(21:09):
and certainly was in the past when ninety five percent
of the medicines that doctors used and pharmacists prescribed were
plant based. You know, it wasn't just make a tea,
you know, you were doing serious chemical extractions, often converting
things into you know, essential oils, distillations, grains. Yeah, I

(21:36):
mean what a pharmacist learns today is well quite a
bit different now that all the drugs are patented and
they come in pill form from the pharmaceutical company. One
hundred years ago, a pharmacist was the town's very best
herbalist and he was the one making all those preparations.
So like King's Medical Dispensatory and other old pharmaceutical publications

(22:05):
or apothecist publications. I believe Kings was specifically for the
eclectic school, but old pharmaceutical textbooks from colleges pre nineteen
twenty at least. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that'd be a
good date to shoot for are incredibly valuable to collect.

(22:28):
If you are an herbalist, especially if you're a clinical herbalist.
A little basic chemistry at a community college will go
a long way in making you a better apothecist, essentially
learning to use the tools of a chemist. And you know,
in England they still call a pharmacist a chemist. So

(22:50):
I mean, anyway, this is aside, but I mean, if
you really want to further your herbal journey, a little
basic organic chemistry, learning to use the equipment, and getting
some of those old texts. We'll really make your heads
and shoulders stand out in the field. I know right now,

(23:13):
one of the very best herbalists I am aware of
of which I'm aware is a young lady up in
the Midwest who is a pharmacist and I think she's
maybe a pharmacistist assistant. I'll have to connect with her
again find out. But she works in a compounding pharmacy,
I mean, like the legit thing, and you know, that's

(23:36):
her day job, and then she works as a professional
herbalist on the side. And what she brings to the
field is really impressive. Whenever I run into something that's
like a really weird condition that I've never even heard of,
I reform over to her. And she also knows a
network of like minded herbalists. And you know, some of

(23:58):
them have medical degrees, some of them have you know,
a pharmacy degrees and et cetera. There some are chemists,
and I mean, you know that's not my style. I'm
a folk herbalist, but you know, these are probably the
people that are going to advance heerbalism into the next century.
And if you have it. If you have that interest,

(24:20):
if you enjoyed you know, organic chemistry in high school
or any of the more well botany. I mean, I'm
thinking more of the natural sciences, then maybe that's something
you want to look into, or you know, medical classes
anatomy if I mean, you may have what it takes

(24:43):
to be a clinical professional herbalist. And I would highly
recommend you look into this and pursue that field because
we need more of that. That's you know, so much
of herbal medicine right now is dominated by New Age

(25:03):
woohoo witchy types, and that's sort of the opposite of that.
And throughout history herbal medicine has mostly been practiced by
professional doctors and apothecus, many of whom were also monks
and nuns. They were certainly not witchy new age you
know people. That's not including you know, like the folk

(25:25):
medicine of a certain tribe somewhere. But we're talking like
London in the fourteen hundreds or France and I don't
know the sixteen hundreds, I mean you flip those numbers
around Ireland from about twelve hundred on ancient Rome Germany.
These were professional train medical train through Catholic colleges, doctors,

(25:51):
you know, physicians, nurses, and apothecus who were erbalists. And
that's where the bulk of our herbal knowledge comes from.
It doesn't from some try about in you know, borneo
somewhere now. They may have a few, you know, fantastic
remedies or a lot of fantastic remedies. And the more
we look into what they learned on their own, it

(26:12):
made cure modern diseases. It's not to diminish them at all,
but the bulk of Western medicine and even modern medicine
comes from the herbal tradition as practiced in Western Europe
and Central Europe for about two thousand years before the

(26:33):
switchover to everything being chemicals and pharmaceuticals and what allopathic medicine,
whatever you want to call it. And you know, some
of the main figures in that switch were also great herbalists,
like Paracelsus, who was the father of toxicology, was also

(26:54):
probably the best herbalist in the Germanic and Central European
countries of the time. And that's only in the fourteen hundreds,
it hasn't been that long ago. So anyway, let's get
back to what were we on it, Spyria meta suite.
Uh yeah, Si, did King say anything else about that? Well,

(27:21):
thinking a lot of the chemical compositions of it, and
they say, I think they thought it also had some
was used with salaceon or Oh No, metaswitet actually has
salicilic acid in it. It has some aspirin type qualities. Yeah,
it's a good one be used like willow and such.

(27:46):
Also has a little camper like body in turpen. They
were talking about how the different varieties that could be
used interchangeably, and it was combined with Virginia root in dropsy,
retention of urine and prosthetic prostate enlargement relieves the urinogeneral irritations,

(28:10):
influences the prostate glen checking prostatorrhea also useful in gleat, vaginitis,
lucral discharges, etc. Yeah. So they talk about some native ones,
but mainly they were using the Spyrea aruncus and philippindula,

(28:33):
which are European varieties that have been brought to the
United States naturalized for medicine. Modernia Day says metaswitet is
astringent and diuretic. It contains methyl silusate similar to aspin
or willow and is used especially for arthritis, rheumatism, and
urinary tract infections. Metasuite is becoming a popular herb because

(28:56):
the salisate content is much more reliable from plant to
plant then either willow or poplar. That's interesting. I know
where some meadow sweet grows near my house. I need
to probably get some going in the yard. It seems
like there's some master work right beside that those two
orbs actually complement each other very well in fevers and flues. Yeah,

(29:20):
I need to get that. Come to think of it,
there's a whole patch of geranium crane cranebill geranium. It's
almost like the herbs for the flu are growing right
there together. I need to grab those. And there's some
Joe pieweed down the hill from there. That's amazing how
things work. But anyway, Plants for a Future says Medicinal

(29:41):
use of white meta sweet. An infusion of the leaves
is esteemed as a restorative tonic. And finally, the Petersonfield
Guide the Eastern Central medicinal plant says SPYRIEA tomentosa. That's
the one that grows near me. It's more of a
native it says American Indian, and she used the leaf
tea for diarrhea and dysentery, flower and leaf tea used

(30:04):
for morning sickness. Leaves and flowers were once used to
stop bleeding. Also for lu Korea, other spyrias were used similarly.
So yeah, I think the spyrias are pretty much interchangeable,
and I can't think of any real cautions with them,
exccept that it does have salacon and you know, with

(30:26):
its aspirin like qualities can thin the blood, so if
you were on prescription blood thinners, you might want to
avoid that one. Generally speaking, much easier on the stomach
than aspirin. Willow meadow sweet violets all contained salas and
poplar buds. There's one other I'm trying to remember, maybe

(30:52):
just maybe master work. Actually I have to double check that,
but anyway, these are salasin containing plants. I'm not sure
about master work, like I said, but the rest are
sellison containing plants. Oh. Birch, Yeah, birch is good birch
twigs that have aspirin type properties but generally don't upset

(31:12):
the stomach or irritate the stomach like aspirin, but could
be slightly blood thinning, you know the same. Definitely good
to have on hand, like if you have cardiac issues
and you know, all kinds of stuff like that. Also
great as a wash. I mean, he has salacan and
it's good for eczema, good for skin irritations itching. Yeah,

(31:35):
So y'all have a great week and I will talk
to you next time.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
The information this podcast is non intended to diagnose or
treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write
has been evaluated or approved by the FDA.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
I'm not a doctor.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
The US government does not recognize the practice of verbal medicine,
and there is no governing body regulating irblas. Therefore, I'm
really just a guy who says IRBs. I'm not offering
any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write
or say is accurate or true. I can tell you
what earths have been traditionally used for. I can tell
you my own experience, and if I believe in herb
has helped me, I cannot, nor would I tell you

(32:15):
to do the same.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
If you use an herb.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Anyone recommends you are treating yourself, you take full responsibility
for your health.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Humans are individuals, and no two are identical. What works
for me may not work for you.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
You may have an allergy of sensitivity and underlying condition
that no one else even shares and you don't even
know about. Be careful with your health by continuing to
listen to my podcast or read my blog you read it.
Be responsible for yourself, your own research, make your own choices,
and not

Speaker 2 (32:44):
To blame me for anything ever.

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