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.
Lungwort, a perennial up to 12 inches tall, grows in sun or partial shade. One of its names is “spotted dog,” because of its silver-spotted evergreen leaves, and another name is “yesterday, today, and tomorrow,” because flowers open pink then turn to blue. Medieval people thought its leaves resembled lungs, and would therefore be good remedies for lung ailments.
Traditional Healing Uses: The most important traditional uses of lungwort tea have been to relieve coughs, bronchitis, hoarseness, chest congestion, and catarrh, as well as to alleviate diarrhea, flatulence, and hemorrhoids. Externally, the leaves have been applied to cuts and wounds.
Harvest: Collect and dry leaves during and after flowering, in spring and summer.
Preparation: Pour boiling water on 1-2 teaspoons of dried leaves and infuse 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.
