Summer-Night Black

So, I have to admit to being intrigued with what are known as the witches’ herbs. I have yet to actually ingest any, but I have them growing and have made tinctures and poultices for external application. The list includes black henbane (Hyscyamus niger), datura (Datura stramonium), mandrake (Mandragora officinalis) and belladonna (Atropa belladonna). All have a rich history of what, in my opinion, is often demeaningly referred to as “folklore.” Of course, the vast majority of non Christian, non Western, non FDA approved medicine is relegated to be based in the non scientifically substantiated category of folklore.

Belladonna, which means “beautiful woman,” is the latest harvest. These berries are jet black and shine like polished onyx or obsidian. Looking at one is to peer into an abyss-like multidimensional blackness where spatial perspective eludes the beholder. It is to view a tiny piece of black hole in the form of a centimeter-wide sphere.

The berries and really the whole plant, is considered to be lethally poisonous, with 10 berries said to be the deadly dose for the average adult. With such a background, it’s no wonder it is commonly known as deadly nighthshade. This is a photo of twelve berries.

All the fear-mongering aside, belladonna is a very important herb, as are all the other herbs mentioned above. Its alkaloids are even used in emergency rooms today to dilate the pupils and relieve pain. It is also purported to be an effective wound healer. So much for “folklore.”

For now, the plan is to harvest about 24 more berries and make a tincture. The berries have been ripening at the rate of 4 to 5 every two days. Previously, I used some leaf in a footbath for a friend who suffered a severe stubbed toe. It eased the pain quickly and helped heal the obvious internal damage (made apparent by the penny-sized blood clot visible beneath the nail on his big toe as well as his inability to walk at all or even put a sock or shoe on).

I have already made tinctures with datura and henbane. Mandrake has proven a bit more tricky. I have yet to get the one plant I have to bloom. It “dies” back every year, but sends up new leaves the following spring. Just when the leaves are beginning to become lavish, they get attacked by snails and/or slugs, then the plant dies back again. The next year, it tries yet again. This has gone on for 4 years now. I’ve tried snail pellets, but obviously I’m not applying it often enough to keep them entirely at bay until the plant blooms. I may start new ones and keep them indoors in pots.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand and the start of my first belladonna tincture.

Summer Yellow

It’s been a minute, as they say. I tried blogging with another host, but wasn’t feeling it. So, I’m back.

Anybody out the~~~~~re…..?

No one would know it from the looks of this blog, but I’ve actually been a busy, busy worker bee, both with my 9 to 5 and also at home.

A lot has transpired since my last post, but I won’t bore whoever you are with that.

The latest intrigue in the yard has been yellow flowers. Specifically, Evening Primrose and St. John’s-wort.

Once in a while I still laugh at how I was duped by the “prim” in evening primrose into believing that it would be a diminutive and fragile herb, only to have half my garden space strong armed by the behemoth. Sure, the flowers alone could possibly be classified as prim, but the plant as a whole is anything but.

This is the specimen in my yard. Photo taken sometime around July 4, 2011:


Here are freshly picked flowers:


And a jar of freshly dried flowers:


I had so many flowers from this one large plant and one medium-sized plant, that I also made a syrup and a tincture.

I could go into the history and uses, but why not use a few links? It’s mostly info I read somewhere else anyway:

http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Oenothera%20biennis

http://www.herbs2000.com/herbs/herbs_evening_primrose.htm

I’ve tried a tea from fresh flowers and dried. The dried version more suits my palate. Fresh, you get a lot of mucilage and a, …how can I put this? …A mild morally sordid smell…? Whatever smell one would associate with morally sordid is up to each individual. Nevertheless, I’ll leave it at that. ☺ When I drank a tea sweetened with the primrose syrup, I had no particular health issues, so the mucilage in the tea made my throat mucousy. I can imagine how that effect might be soothing to someone with a dry cough.

It is a beautiful plant. I only purposely planted it once. Since then, owing to its tendency to self seed profusely, it comes up wherever it wants, which just so happens to be a notably different location each year. Since it blooms in the evening, it’s one of the plants that hummingbirds go to for a last call before turning in for the night.

St. John’s-wort, the natural mood enhancer, wound healer, muscle relaxer, viral combater, sleep inducer and so on and so forth, is another yellow flowered beaut. A lot of interesting history associated with this plant, plenty of which precedes its connection with Christianity’s St. John the Baptist.

A good read:

http://www.sacredearth.com/ethnobotany/plantprofiles/stjohn.php



These flowers were just recently harvested from plants I started from seed back in 2003. I have made massage oils and tinctures from its flowering tops. This time, I decided to go back to simple tea and dried a nice sized batch.


And check out the crop’s first tea. Its gorgeous rosé hue is all in the glands. The tiny oil glands which cover the yellow flower petals and green leaves and which exudes a red oil whose main constituent is hypericin. It is this hypericin which is one of the components responsible for the many benefits that we reap from St. John’s-wort. Its bountiful tannins also play an essential role in this plant’s ancient and modern popularity in herbalism.