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.
Sturdy, 30 inch perennial plants with spikes of tall, rounded, red-purple flowers in late summer. Grow in sun or part shade.
Traditional Healing Uses: Betony tea has been used to calm tension, anxiety, and nervous headaches, to lower blood pressure, and to relieve diarrhea, indigestion, rheumatism, neuralgia, and sore throats (as a gargle). Betony tea is an herbal alternative to black tea.
Harvest: Gather and dry leaves and flowering tops just before bloom.
Preparation: Pour 1 cup of boiling water over 1-2 teaspoons of dried herb and steep 10-15 minutes. Take 3 times a day.
Caution: Large amounts of betony may irritate the stomach.
Take a look at all our Traditional Healing Herbs in this amazing flip-book! Or click here for a poster.
