Traditional Healing Herbs are gentle, nature‑centered ways of easing the symptoms of flus, colds, and digestive upsets, of working with chronic maladies, and of giving first aid for minor accidents such as cuts, bruises, and stings. For thousands of years, people have relied on plants for healing. Gathering summer plants for winter remedies is part of the year’s rhythm. There’s a pleasant satisfaction, too, in preparing herbal remedies for your family, your friends, and yourself. Among the joys of summer can be growing and gathering beneficent garden herbs, drying them in big fragrant bunches for winter teas, and preparing a collection of herbal tinctures, syrups, oils, ointments, and cosmetics. In winter, we can use summer’s bounty to keep ourselves healthy.
Marshmallow is a 3 foot perennial plant with large pink flowers that bloom in August and September. It quickly forms a large root mass.
Traditional Healing Uses: Marshmallow tea has been used to soothe and relax the body’s internal passages, and to heal inflammations and irritations in digestive, urinary, and respiratory organs. It has been used to treat coughs, bronchitis, colitis, ulcers, and urinary cystitis. Marshmallow root poultices have been applied to boils, ulcers, and abscesses.
Other Uses: Fresh raw leaves are tasty in spring salads; roots may be boiled and then fried in butter with onions.
Harvest: Leaves and roots are both used. Collect leaves in late summer after flowering, and roots in late autumn the second year of growth. Dry lateral and main roots; remove bark from older roots and then dry roots whole or sliced.
Preparation: Put 1 teaspoon of chopped root into a cup of water and boil gently 10-15 minutes, 3 times a day. Or pour boiling water on 1-2 teaspoons of dried leaf and steep for 10-15 minutes, 3 times a day.
Take a look at all our Traditional Healing Herbs in this amazing flip-book! Or click here for a poster.
