Native Healers. Anita Ralph
If you have a small hand lens with 5X or 10X magnification, it is fascinating to look at plants in the daisy family and see in magnification all the tiny flowers that make up the head or capitulum.
Interesting Fact: Daisies
The name ‘daisy’ is from the words ‘days-eye’, meaning the flowers move on their stems and follow the sun rising in the East and setting in the West.
Members of the daisy family have either all strap or ligulate florets, like a dandelion, Taraxacum officinale F.H.Wigg. or they have all tubular florets, like common tansy, Tanacetum vulgare L.
Moreover, not all members of the Asteraceae have florets sitting on a flat capitulum like a daisy. One such example is the wonderful wild mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris L., and another is the equally charismatic, wild yarrow, Achillea millefolium L.
The Echinacea species belong to the Asteraceae family, and demonstrate firm florets in the centre of the capitulum, giving rise to their name meaning ‘like a hedgehog’, from the Greek ‘Ekhinos’.
Other important medicinal plants found within the Asteraceae family include:
•Burdock, Arctium lappa L.
•Milk thistle, Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn
•Goldenrod, Solidago virguarea L.
•Elecampane, Inula helenium L.
•German chamomile, Matricaria chamomilla (L.) Rauschert
•Pot marigold, Calendula officinalis L.
•Feverfew, Tanacetum parthenium (L.) Sch.Bip
•Arnica, Arnica montana L.
•Roman chamomile, Anthemis nobilis L.
•Boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum L.
•Wormwood, Artemisia absinthium L.
•Gumweed, Grindelia camporum Greene
•Coltsfoot, Tussilago farfara L.
•Tansy, Tanacetum vulgare L.
Ethnopharmacological studies have identified the Asteraceae family of plants as containing some members with notable healing properties.7 Our common daisy (Bellis perennis L.) has a long history of use in the treatment of wounds and bruises. Marigold (Calendula officinalis L.) is also a supreme healer from this family, and we will be looking at this more closely in Chapter 6.
Many Asteraceae members feature as food plants (sunflower Helianthus annus L. and artichoke, Cynara cardunculus L.), and they have many useful medicinal compounds including lipids, flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, sesquiterpene lactones, essential oils and mucilages.4
We shall take a more in-depth look at the wonderful world of mucilages later in this chapter.
Rose family (Rosaceae)
(Known universally as the rose family).
A diverse family of trees, shrubs and herbs, this family includes well-known fruit-bearing plants such as apples, pears, almonds, peaches, apricots, strawberries, raspberries, cherries and sloes.
Their leaves are alternate, with either simple or compound leaf shapes.
The flowers are terminal and solitary, or appear in racemes, cymes or panicles.
Definition—Raceme, cyme and panicle: These are all botanical words to describe variations in the structure of flower heads.
The flowers are usually composed of five sepals and five petals, but with numerous stamens.
The seeds can be few or many, and are highly variable—as are the fruits, which can vary from a collection of achenes as in meadowsweet, a drupe as in plum and cherry, druplets as in raspberry and blackberry or a pome in apples and pears.
Definition—Drupe, drupelets and pomes: These are all botanical words to describe variations in the structure of seeds.
Some of the wonderful medicinal plants in the Rosaceae family:
•Dog rose, Rosa canina L.
•Agrimony, Agrimonia eupatoria L.
•Meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria (L.) Maxim.
•Tormentil, Potentilla erecta (L.) Raeusch
•Raspberry, Rubus ideaus L.
•Blackberry, Rubus fructicosus L.
•Parsley piert, Alchemilla arvensis (L.) Scop. Note: see how common names can be confusing—this is not a parsley!
•Lady's mantle, Alchemilla vulgaris L.
•Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna Jacq.
Rosaceae family plants contain a large number of useful medicinal compounds such as phenolic acids and polysaccharide compounds, flavonoid glycosides, procyanidins, xanthines, therapeutic tannins, as well as useful minerals and pectins.5
Bramley apple blossom (Malus domestica L.)
Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria L.)
Spiral shape of meadowsweet seeds.
In the next section, we look at the plant compounds, the tannins, in more detail.
Plant constituents
In this section, we consider the chemical compounds found in plants in more detail, and review four plant constituents of particular relevance to herbal medicine—mucilages, tannins, saponins and essential oils.
Herbal medicine (phytotherapy) uses whole plants with their array of medicinal compounds, acknowledging synergy between them. Herbal medicine operates in that interesting greeny-grey area somewhere between food and drugs. This is not to be confused with homoeopathy, a completely different system and philosophy, that uses minute dilutions and vibrations of minerals, plants and animal extracts.
Many of the major dietary compounds found in plants beyond basic proteins, carbohydrates and fats, are classed as vitamins and minerals. Examples include the vitamin C found in berries and fruits of the Rosaceae, such as rosehip (Rosa canina L. fructus) or Blackcur-rant (Ribes nigrum L. fructus). It is increasingly understood that many edible plants and herbs contain different types of antioxidant compounds (including vitamin C), and contribute to preventing cell damage around the body.8
The red and blue pigments synthesised by plants into red-blue coloured fruits and vegetables is a signature for the presence of anthocyanins, a secondary metabolite belonging to the class of compounds known as flavonoids. In plants, they may act as an attractor for pollinators or for attracting animals for seed dispersal. In the human body, flavonoids are known to have certain health benefits, rather than providing a direct food source. Flavonoids are mildly astringent, and contribute to the health and integrity of the membranes on the surfaces of our body, for example, in periodontal health and hygiene.9