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.
Skullcap is a perennial native to wet, shady places in eastern North America, but the 6-24 inch plants grow well in sunny sites also. Small blue flowers bloom all summer.
Traditional Healing Uses: Skullcap has been used to strengthen the nervous system and soothe stressed nerves; as a remedy for tension, exhaustion, fatigue headaches, depression, insomnia, hysteria, seizures, epilepsy, anxiety, and irritability; and to treat hives and muscle pain caused by stress. It has also been given to recovering alcoholics, ex-smokers, and used to relieve menstrual cramping and premenstrual stress.
Harvest: Gather and dry leaves and flowering tops in late summer.
Preparation: Pour 1 cup boiling water on 1-2 teaspoons of dried herb and let it steep for 10-15 minutes, 2 times a day.
Caution: Skullcap tea may slow reflexes; avoid driving after drinking it. Drink it only occasionally, unless under medical supervision.
Take a look at all our Traditional Healing Herbs in this amazing flip-book! Or click here for a poster.
